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Food & Water Watch To Take Back the Tap in Portland

Consumer Advocacy Organization Commends City For Continued Effort to Ditch Bottled Water

Washington, DC. –  Bottled water has been a popular beverage option in Portland in the past. And Food & Water Watch organizer Nancy Matela is working to ensure that it’s popularity stays in the past. Matela is working with local activists in Portland as part of Food & Water Watch’s Take Back the Tap campaign to convince local restaurants and event organizers to eliminate bottled water.

“Portland is progressive in so many ways that it only makes sense to give restaurants and events the goal of bottled water elimination.  Many of their customers are already demanding it,” says Matela.

Food & Water Watch’s efforts in Portland come at a time when businesses and organizations around the city are already rejecting bottled water. "Our focus here at Higgins is to choose the freshest local, seasonal and sustainable products as the basis for our cuisine,” said Greg Higgins of Higgins Restaurant & Bar, Portland Oregon, a participant in the Take Back the Tap campaign. “By doing so we maximize the benefit to our bodies, our communities and our environment. When it comes to choosing our drinking water the only sensible choice is obvious--good old Bull Run from the tap."

In June, the Portland Water Bureau introduced its “Forest to Faucet” initiative to provide free public tap water to attendees of public events at Portland’s Waterfront Park. On August 10 Providence Health and Service’s 13th Annual Bridge Pedal, a bicycling event that takes tens of thousands of riders across eleven bridges spanning the Willamette River, will be bottled water-free. The event organizers will provide bulk water.

Today Food & Water Watch released Free Your Event From Bottled Water, a guide for planners hoping to eliminate bottled water from their events. The organization has also launched the website takebackthetap.org to provide useful materials such as petitions, how-to guides, educational fliers, and other resources to aid restaurateurs and restaurant-goers in removing bottled water from local menus. The group’s Take Back the Tap report also details why choosing tap water is better for consumers’ health, their pocketbooks, and the environment.

Food & Water Watch is a nonprofit consumer rights organization that challenges the corporate control and abuse of our food and water resources. Visit www.foodandwaterwatch.org