Themuseum ends bottled water sales, installs refilling stations

KITCHENER — Bottled water will no longer be sold at Themuseum in downtown Kitchener.

Instead, people are invited to fill reusable bottles at new filling stations located throughout the museum. One hydration station is already installed, and two more will be added soon.

“We encourage every visitor to bring their own reusable water bottles,” said museum spokesperson Jenna van Klaveren. “It fills up very quickly so it’s convenient and easy to use, even for younger kids.”

The stations were donated as part of Waterloo Region’s Healthy Kids Community Challenge, an ongoing provincially funded initiative in 45 communities across Ontario that aims to promote physical activity and healthy eating for children and their families.

Van Klaveren said it’s a “natural move” that hopefully will spread through the community and encourage more people to go for tap water over bottled.

“It’s exciting. It is a big step,” she said.

Soon Themuseum will display a “Blue W” decal. The grassroots movement, started in Guelph, aims to promote municipal tap water as a healthy, easily accessible alternative to buying bottled drinks. Organizations offering free tap water can register and be added to the map on the website, bluew.org.

The restaurant attached to Themuseum, the B, is a registered Blue W space and it serves tap water at tables and has never sold bottled water.

For now, juice will still be sold at the museum’s snack station, but the plan is to phase that out over the coming months.

“We’d like to reduce that to further encourage healthier choices,” van Klaveren said.

Before the museum had water fountains for thirsty patrons, and the filling stations still have a fountain along with a nozzle that’s positioned to easily refill bottles with fresh, cool water.

“It’s so much easier than the older water fountains we had,” van Klaveren said.

The museum has reusable water bottles for sale in the gift shop and plans to reorder new ones soon.

The plan is to install the refilling stations around the museum. The first is centrally located in the cafeteria space.

“It’s right where the families congregate and eat the lunches they bring with them,” van Klaveren said.

Encouraging kids to drink tap water to establish a healthy habit for life is the goal of the healthy kids community challenge’s current theme: “water does wonders.”

Public health nutritionist Carolyn Tereszkowski said they want to promote water as the healthiest drinking choice with the aim of reducing consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, which contribute to obesity, heart disease and Type 2 diabetes.

Making local tap water more accessible, especially when people are out in the community, is an essential part of that effort. It is clean, free and environmentally sustainable.

More than 100 hydration stations were installed around the region in schools, not-for-profit daycare centres, municipal facilities, recreation centres, community organizations and libraries.

“We were trying to focus on places where children and families spent time,” Tereszkowski said.

The next theme for the healthy kids community challenge is fruits and vegetables.