Move to allow plastic bottles in US parks slammed

The US administration's decision to reverse a ban on the sale of plastic water bottles in some of Americas national parks shows "the corporate agenda is king and people and the environment are left behind", campaigners have said.

The remarks on Sunday come after the administration ended a policy that allowed parks to ban the sale of plastic bottled water in an effort to curb pollution, reports the Guardian.

"This policy was a win-win for everyone except the bottled water industry, which is only interested in its bottom line," said Lauren DeRusha Florez, a campaign director for Corporate Accountability International, a group that campaigns against corporate abuses.

The change means national parks will no longer be allowed to ban plastic bottled water, after Trump administration officials ended a six-year-old policy put in place to curb pollution.

"It should be up to our visitors to decide how best to keep themselves and their families hydrated during a visit to a national park, particularly during hot summer visitation periods," said acting National Park Service director Michael Reynolds.

He said parks would continue to encourage people to use free bottle filling stations, "as appropriate".

In 2011, the parks service encouraged America's 417 federal parks to end bottled water sales where practical, arguing that the system needed to be "an exemplar of sustainability", the Guardian reported.

Parks that did ban bottled water only did so after installation of water bottle filling stations and a campaign to inform visitors where those filling stations are.

Twenty-three of America's most famous parks had ended bottled water sales, such as the Grand Canyon and Zion, which together drew 10.2 million visitors in 2016 alone. Last year, 331 million people visited America's national parks.

Plastic bottles at the Grand Canyon alone comprised 20 per cent of the park's waste and 30 per cent of its recyclable waste.

--IANS

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