Bottled water use has grown exponentially over the past few decades, and this has led to major pollution of the environment, including millions of Plastic bottles being dumped in landfills across the globe every year.

While it is really not nice to see all of the plastic bottles lying around our favourite picnic spots, sports fields or washing up on our beaches, the worst damage is done by those that land up in landfills, as plastic poisons the earth and takes decades to disintegrate.

San Francisco has decided to pursue a very progressive environmental regulation – banning bottled water – something no other major city has ever dared do.

This is not the first time that San Francisco has taken a massive step towards becoming green – it previously led the way on banning plastic shopping bags. San Francisco, known as one of the most environmentally progressive cities in the country, was also the first in the US to pass a comprehensive mandatory recycling and composting law.

The ban is not a complete one though, as city officials initially only banned the sale of single-use plastic water bottles on city-owned property, which leaves private businesses unaffected. The ordinance, originally passed in 2014, has been expanded in recent years to also include the sale of bottled water at large events on city properties; it also prohibits San Francisco government agencies from buying plastic bottled water.

“Given America’s addiction to plastic water bottles, we knew we had to be smart,” said David Chiu, a state assemblyman who introduced the measure when he was a San Francisco supervisor. “There were members of the public who couldn’t imagine life without plastic water bottles.”

Earlier this year, the city expanded the law to restrict the sale or distribution of “packaged” water on city property, due to some vendors switching to alternatives that are also ecologically harmful, such as water in cans, glass bottles or other single-use containers. The ordinance now includes sealed boxes, bags, cans and other containers with a capacity of one litre or less.

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