Turn Me ON

bristol | the environment | press release Wednesday March 10, 2010 16:37 by Fishinwater - Frank Water Projects

Join the Refill Campaign

Bristol Charity ,Frank Water, launches a campaign to put pressure on local council and water companies to provide easy access to drinkng water in an effort to reduce the use of bottled water.

Bristol based charity, Frank Water, has this week launched a competition as part of its campaign to encourage us to refill and reuse, rather than keep on buying, those plastic bottles.

Bottled water has a carbon footprint 300 times higher than tap water, and accounts for thousands of tonnes of waste every year. Mathew Mellor, Volunteer Campaign coordinator, said: ‘We need to encourage people to refill and reduce their reliance on bottled water. The Victorians created the drinking fountains as a civic amenity to provide fresh drinking water. There’s still a need. Ideally we’d like to see water freely available for refill in shops, parks and public spaces.’

The ‘Turn Me On’ campaign aims to highlight the fact that most of our public drinking fountains are out of action, and will be petitioning the local council and water companies to restore them. Take a photo of a fountain in need of restoration and you could win a year’s supply of water (aka a refill bottle). Download the campaign logo from http://refill.ning.com to include in your photo and if you’re the lucky winner it will be used to promote the campaign.

Mathew has also set up an e-petition on Bristol City council’s website calling on the council to bring back drinking fountains. ‘The biggest petition so far has 10,206 signatures. That may be hard to beat but lets try!’ he said.

The Refill Campaign website encourages active involvement from those of us who want to see people refill rather than buy single-use disposable bottles. It suggests various ways to get involved – from simply buying a refill bottle, to lobbying for better access to drinking water or even adopting a fountain.