Taxing bottled water
WHO: Municipalities all over the country, including Ann Arbor, New York, Orlando, Seattle, and San Francisco.
WHAT: After the U.S. Conference of Mayors decided in June to “phase out…government use of bottled water and promote the importance of municipal water,” bottled water has become the latest target for taxation.
HOW: For years, activist groups encouraged Americans to drink more water instead of calorie-laden fruit juices and soda. Now that they are doing just that, environmental groups are suddenly complaining that all those plastic bottles are clogging local landfills. The situation has gotten so absurd that delivery teams in Salt Lake City waste gas to deliver drinking water to firefighters battling blazes because they’re no longer allowed to take disposable water bottles with them on the city’s fire trucks.
WHY: Taxing healthy bottled water will just encourage people to go back to sugary beverages.
