Do it is a should to’re finding out this, you perhaps already hate plastic bottles. I keep in mind by this diploma even these of us who aren’t considerably environmentally acutely conscious have seen the pictures of seashores lined in litter and animals with stomachs full of the stuff. It’s disgusting, it’s upsetting and it’s irritating. However the good news is that, in any case for some plastics, there are actually actually easy choices to decrease how numerous this supplies we convey into the world. Thought-about one amongst many largest components that’s moreover the one to fluctuate? Bottled water.
Bottled water is a fairly newest phenomenon, and folks have been surviving on faucet water sooner than bottles merely high-quality. Bottled water was actually invented by large enterprise contained within the Seventies, and tap water is usually elevated prime quality and performs elevated in blind model testing. At current Britain consumes spherical 3 billion litres of bottled water per yr, and most of those bottles are made with virgin (not recycled) plastic. London buys most positively mainly basically essentially the most of all, spending a recommend of 7.7bn a yr on the stuff as an alternative of merely getting it from dwelling for practically nothing.
Nonetheless now there’s a selling promoting advertising and marketing marketing campaign to fluctuate components, and it needs your assist.
I spoke to Will from the Water For London selling promoting advertising and marketing marketing campaign to be taught further about this important drawback, and what they want to see carried out. Their goal is to see a gaggle of consuming fountains and refillable water stations put in all by the use of your total Transport for London group, so that people can refill their very non-public bottles from dwelling on the go, and we’ll all get solely a bit nearer to zero waste dwelling.
How did the selling promoting advertising and marketing marketing campaign start?
I started the selling promoting advertising and marketing marketing campaign in September closing yr – I had the privilege of spending the sooner 12 months on a career break; I visited an extreme quantity of areas, met implausible people, and tried numerous new experiences. Sadly there was one not so optimistic problem that I witnessed virtually everywhere 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 ultimate phrase 10 years, I’d been acutely aware of the issues from afar, nonetheless coming face-to-face with the ocean plastic drawback grew to develop to be very visceral and created a passion to take movement and harness that vitality to behave in a optimistic methodology to do one challenge about it.
Moreover on my my travels I seen freely and obtainable water refill stations and fountains all by the use of pretty various cities – areas to refill my bottle that obtained correct proper right here with me everywhere on my travels. Airports, bus and put collectively stations, parks, public squares… most people provision and visual nature appeared to normalise a refill personalized and folks had an obvious place to entry free faucet water whereas on the go.
I believed why doesn’t London have this? What do commuters, vacationers, people who work, dwell and play in London do for water on the go?
Evaluation confirmed my concepts and refined my contemplating – that there is in the mean time no water provision at any TfL or put collectively stations, and thirsty people should purchase pricey water in single-use plastic bottles. The alternate options have been non-existent. After further evaluation a petition was born specializing inside the Mayor of London and Transport for London to place in bottle refill stations at every tube, put collectively, tram, bus and boat station they operate so people in London have some to go to get water with out the plastic.
How is the selling promoting advertising and marketing marketing campaign going?
The marketing promoting advertising and marketing marketing campaign shortly gathered momentum, forging hyperlinks with SumofUs that helped get the message out to their supporters. Shortly fairly a number of buddies and supporters wished to get entangled someway, to contribute and help push for the put together of the water refill components. From there we long-established a volunteer group that meet month-to-month to help coordinate the selling promoting advertising and marketing marketing campaign actions.
Our predominant actions are:
- Creating public assist to help assemble stress on the Mayor of London by the use of the petitions and social media (internet net web page on its methodology)
- Making a coalition of supporters
- Immediately partaking the Mayor, the GLA, TfL and Thames Water to encourage them to meet our selling promoting advertising and marketing marketing campaign asks (and break down the boundaries they put up)
At current, the selling promoting advertising and marketing marketing campaign petitions have 17.5k signatures all by the use of the 2 platforms and simply as of late it appears equivalent to the Mayor has been listening to most people assist as he launched the good news {{{{that a}}}} pilot scheme of refill stations will most certainly be starting this summer season season season.
We’re treating this as partial success. It’s good news nonetheless we want to push the Mayor to go further than the 20 fountains launched. There are over 500 tube, put collectively, bus, tram and Thames Clipper stations operated by TfL, all with a great deal of entrances!
Although this will very properly be a start, 20 fountains is comparable as roughly one fountain per 500 thousand people, which is one heck of a disparity (I can already think about the nightmare queues). So now it is as hundreds as us to keep up up the momentum going, and hopefully we’ll rid London of pointless bottled water.
For now, the primary goal is on persevering with to up the stress on TfL because of the additional people who want it, the extra sturdy it is to refuse.
On excessive of that, guarantee that to regulate to Water For London on social media, the place you could be saved up to date with the most recent developments.
