The Butchart Gardens is helping to save the environment one bottle of water at a time.

In recognition of World Water Day (March 22), the Gardens decided to stop selling all single-use plastic water bottles.

“We’re always trying to be aware of our environment and the environment we work in here,” said Dale Ryan, director of public relations, sales and marketing at Butchart.

Ryan said they realized they were selling in excess of 80,000 water bottles a year.

Visitors to the Gardens who don’t have their own water bottle, can purchase one at the Gardens for $3.99, which Ryan said is the same price at whic they were selling bottles of water.

“So people have this keepsake water bottle and then they can use it for other reasons,” she said.

The benefit of eliminating the sale of water bottles, she said, isn’t necessarily a benefit to Butchart, but a benefit for the environment.

“It’s about us being good citizens and good stewards of the environment, and our owners are very cognizant of that, we all are here,” she said, adding Butchart has active recycling programs and do a number of different environmental initiatives.

Over the last nine months, Butchart has purchased four new double-filtered water stations for visitors to stop and get water. Their furry friends too will get to enjoy.

“They’re really interesting because it’s a double filtered process and there’s a drinking fountain, there’s a bottle filter station and a doggy water dish,” said Ryan.

She said all of the stations were purchased for the purpose of helping to save the environment and eliminating the sale of plastic water bottles.

Since their announcement, she said Butchart has been getting a great response from the public, so much so that people are buying 12-month passes to show their support for Butchart’s movement.

“I think everybody’s really aware of the environment and so that was great.”