Refill, not landfill
![](https://www.mcgill.ca/sustainability/files/sustainability/styles/fullwidth_breakpoints_theme_moriarty_small_1x/public/channels/image/refill_mcgill.png?itok=HciTiDIB×tamp=1553192891)
McGill Reporter | March 19, 2019
by: Neale McDevitt
On March 22, 2018 – World Water Day – McGill announced that it planned to eliminate the sale of single-use plastic water bottles on campus by the end of May 2019. This represents 85,000 bottles per year.
“We’re concentrating on bottled water for a few reasons. For one, we are incredibly fortunate here in Montreal to have safe, potable water provided by the municipality, which makes relying on single-use bottled water largely unnecessary,” said François Miller, Director of the McGill Office of Sustainability at the time of last year’s announcement. “Second, when you think about the amount of fossil fuels required to both produce and transport the bottles, drinking tap water is also a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”