Bottled water

I recently found a 400ml Pump mini unopened bottle of water. On the side of the bottle I read that Coca-Cola Amatil (NZ) is the proud partner of Eat My Lunch, a business that gives a free lunch to a Kiwi kid in need for each lunch bought. Over 90 schools receive these lunches, including nine Christchurch schools.

A photograph on the Eat My Lunch website shows two children with a plastic bottle of water prominently displayed in the front left of the photograph.

Eat My Lunch gives the kids a Pump bottle once a week. To me, this is an insidious way to get young minds used to expecting water to come in bottles and thus create the bottled water buyers of the future.

Schools are required to provide clean, safe water especially for drinking, the responsibility of either the local authority or the Board of Trustees, not Coca-Cola.

Eat my Lunch claims to have

Sue Piercey, Ferrymead

Lisa King, CEO and founder of Eat My Lunch, responds: Eat My Lunch works with Pump NZ to give children in our programme access to water. The children Eat My Lunch gives lunch too don’t bring any lunch to school, and it most cases don’t have access to a water bottle bought from home. A number of the children in the schools we deliver lunches to do not have the means to access water conveniently throughout the day with a drink bottle, either in the classroom or at sports practice. The Pump mini bottle encourages children in our programme to keep hydrated whenever they need it. Children are encouraged to refill and reuse the bottles, which are both recyclable and BPA free. The children receive the bottle with their lunch once a week, and are encouraged to reuse and recycle it. Unfortunately not all schools are in a position where they have access to fresh water for the children to drink.