WTNH - Hartford considers bottled water ban

There's a push in Hartford to remove bottled water from the state Capitol and replace it with tap water in an effort to save money and the environment.

A taste test at the capitol today pitted Aquafina, Poland Spring, Hartford tap water and Simsbury tap water against each other. Telling them apart proved to be a challenge for Natalie May of New Haven.

"I could tell some of them were tap, but I like tap water better than bottle," Natalie said.

State Rep. Beth Bye says this is the proof that the state needs to convert all spring water coolers at the Legislative Office Building to tap water.

"Just in this building we spend about $12,000 a year on bottled water. Year after year after year. If we put all state agencies together we'd save $465,000 a year," Bye explained.

There would still be water coolers throughout the building, but instead of spring water they would be plugged right into the tap. The initial cost would be about $10,000, but the savings over the next several years would be huge.

"It would save hundreds of thousands of dollars, even millions if we did it across all state agencies," said Bye.

And keeping money in taxpayer's pockets is always a good idea.

"When we consider that there are stronger regulations governing tap water than bottled water, we're actually doing something for the health of the people working in state office buildings as well as taxpayer dollars," said taxpayer C.J. May.

The state Department of Environmental Protection has already changed over to tap water.

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