City to Sea – What is National Refill Day?

On Wednesday 19th June 2019 we’ll be asking the nation if they’ve #GotTheBottle to prevent plastic pollution.  Brought to you by City to Sea as part of the award-winning Refill Campaign, National Refill Day is an awareness campaign to get the UK public to stop bottling it when it comes to our drinking water.  We want to create a new social norm for refilling on the go – saving us money, keeping us hydrated and preventing millions of single-use plastic bottles at source.  Over the last 15 years, the consumption of bottled water has doubled in the UK. Of the 13 billion plastic bottles used each year – an estimated 7.7 billion, or nearly 60% are plastic water bottles!

Sadly, it’s been estimated than almost half of these bottles are NOT recycled and around 15 million plastic bottles are littered, landfilled or incinerated every day – ending up in our natural environment and flowing into our oceans!  Click here to access more information on the City to Sea refill campaign

Water briefing: Bristol Water is set to install eight new water fountains across Bristol – the first fountain will be officially unveiled on the College Green today as part of National Refill Day.

The initiative is part of a campaign to reduce single-use plastic spearheaded by Bristol based City to Sea. The new water fountains will quadruple the number of refill fountains in Bristol and will be installed over the coming months by Bristol Water, in partnership with Bristol City Council and Bristol Waste. Collectively, they will prevent 50 miles of plastic bottle waste and save local people half a million pounds a year, versus bottled alternatives.

Mel Karam, CEO at Bristol Water, said:  “Often, people turn to bottled water out of convenience. As a local water company, we want to reduce plastic waste here in Bristol by making tap water more publicly available on the go.  “We want to empower our community to opt for a reusable water bottle instead. Last month we took to a boat with City to Sea to remove plastic from our beautiful Harbourside and the number of plastic bottles we found in the water was frightening.

“We have some of the best drinking water in the world; it’s the healthiest thing you can drink and one thousand times cheaper than bottled alternatives.”

Cllr Nicola Beech, Cabinet Member for Spatial Planning and City Design at Bristol City Council, said:

“This project plays a really important part of our plans to make Bristol a more accessible place to live, to work in and to visit. We’ve prioritised locations in busy areas and on commuter routes where people are walking and cycling.

“Drinking fresh, clean water is a basic need and by providing these fountains, we can not only support that but also play a leading role in reducing plastic waste. It builds on the successful work already started with Bristol Green Capital in 2015