In case you’re studying this, you probably already hate plastic bottles. I think about by this stage even these of us who aren’t significantly environmentally acutely acutely aware have seen the pictures of seashores coated in litter and animals with stomachs stuffed with the stuff. It’s disgusting, it’s upsetting and it’s irritating. Nonetheless the excellent news is that, no less than for some plastics, there are literally actually easy decisions to lower how a great deal of this provides we convey into the world. Actually one in every of many greatest factors that’s furthermore the proper to vary? Bottled water.
Bottled water is a reasonably current phenomenon, and people have been surviving on faucet water earlier than bottles merely advantageous. Bottled water was actually invented by large enterprise contained in the Seventies, and faucet water is usually elevated high quality and performs elevated in blind kind testing. At present Britain consumes spherical 3 billion litres of bottled water per 12 months, and most of these bottles are made with virgin (not recycled) plastic. London buys most probably basically probably the most of all, spending a indicate of 7.7bn a 12 months on the stuff instead of merely getting it from dwelling for virtually nothing.
Nonetheless now there’s a promoting advertising marketing campaign to vary factors, and it wants your assist.
I spoke to Will from the Water For London promoting advertising marketing campaign to examine additional about this wanted situation, and what they need to see achieved. Their objective is to see a gaggle of ingesting fountains and refillable water stations put in all by means of your entire Transport for London group, so that individuals can refill their very private bottles from dwelling on the go, and we’re ready to all get only a bit nearer to zero waste dwelling.
How did the promoting advertising marketing campaign begin?
I began the promoting advertising marketing campaign in September final 12 months – I had the privilege of spending the earlier 12 months on a profession break; I visited a great deal of locations, met good of us, and tried a great deal of new experiences. Sadly there was one not so constructive situation that I witnessed practically in every single place on my travels: plastic bottle waste. From the seashores of Costa Rica, the reefs of the Caribbean, the Islands of Greece, the mountains of Poland and the streets of cities I visited.
Working in sustainability for the last word 10 years, I’d been conscious of the problems from afar, nonetheless coming face-to-face with the ocean plastic situation grew to change into very visceral and created a ardour to take motion and harness that vitality to behave in a constructive method to do one issue about it.
Furthermore on my my travels I seen freely and on the market water refill stations and fountains all by means of fairly a number of cities – locations to refill my bottle that obtained proper right here with me in every single place on my travels. Airports, bus and observe stations, parks, public squares… the general public provision and visible nature appeared to normalise a refill customized and people had an apparent place to entry free faucet water whereas on the go.
I assumed why doesn’t London have this? What do commuters, vacationers, of us that work, dwell and play in London do for water on the go?
Analysis confirmed my ideas and refined my pondering – that there’s presently no water provision at any TfL or observe stations, and thirsty of us need to buy costly water in single-use plastic bottles. The alternatives have been non-existent. After further analysis a petition was born concentrating on the Mayor of London and Transport for London to position in bottle refill stations at each tube, observe, tram, bus and boat station they carry out so of us in London have some to go to get water with out the plastic.
How is the promoting advertising marketing campaign going?
The promoting advertising marketing campaign shortly gathered momentum, forging hyperlinks with SumofUs that helped get the message out to their supporters. Shortly a great deal of associates and supporters wished to change into involved someway, to contribute and assist push for the prepare of the water refill parts. From there we frequent a volunteer group that meet month-to-month to assist coordinate the promoting advertising marketing campaign actions.
Our common actions are:
- Organising public assist to assist assemble strain on the Mayor of London by means of the petitions and social media (net web page on its technique)
- Organising a coalition of supporters
- Immediately partaking the Mayor, the GLA, TfL and Thames Water to encourage them to meet our promoting advertising marketing campaign asks (and break down the boundaries they put up)
At present, the promoting advertising marketing campaign petitions have 17.5k signatures all by means of the two platforms and by no means too method again it appears identical to the Mayor has been listening to the general public assist as he launched the excellent news {{{that a}}} pilot scheme of refill stations will most probably be beginning this summer season season.
We’re treating this as partial success. It’s excellent news nonetheless we need to push the Mayor to go further than the 20 fountains launched. There are over 500 tube, observe, bus, tram and Thames Clipper stations operated by TfL, all with loads of entrances!
Though that is normally a begin, 20 fountains is equivalent as roughly one fountain per 500 thousand of us, which is one heck of a disparity (I can already think about the nightmare queues). So now it’s as so much as us to deal with the momentum going, and hopefully we’re ready to rid London of pointless bottled water.
For now, the precept objective is on persevering with to up the strain on TfL due to the extra of us that need it, the tougher it’s to refuse.
On extreme of that, assure to observe Water For London on social media, the place it’s possible you’ll be saved updated with the most recent developments.
