Have you #GotTheBottle to prevent plastic pollution?

What is National Refill Day?

On Wednesday 19th June 2019 the nation was challenged to see if we’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.  

They 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.  

Did you know…

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!  

But there is a solution... 

We’re lucky in the UK to have some of the highest quality drinking water in the World and we want everyone, everywhere to know how easy it is to Refill on the go removing the need to ever buy a single use plastic water bottle ever again. We all know when we travel how much we miss our wonderful Scottish Tap water.

They want to make this year’s National Refill Day our biggest yet.

In 2018, which was our first ever National Refill Day we were trending on Twitter ALLday, reached over 33 million people and had the support of DEFRA, The Environment Agency, Government Ministers, MPs, and campaigners like Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.

For more information check out their website here for ways to get involved.

Dunfermline flows ahead!

Dunfermline have recently installed a water tap in the town. The high-tech Top Up Tap has been installed at the Kingsgate end of the High Street as part of Scottish Water’s national initiative to encourage people to carry a reusable bottle and stay hydrated out and about. Only a few hundred meters from our churches front door.

We are being encouraged to ask in shops, restaurants and in our churches to refill our bottles. Our church kitchen can be a busy place but please always feel welcome to pop in and Refill.

Plastic-Free Dunfermline, a movement led by local businessman James Daw, which is focused on getting residents, schools, community groups, businesses and Fife Council to reduce their singe-use plastic consumption, initially approached Scottish Water about Dunfermline getting a tap who were happy to be involved. To read more go to the full article in the Dunfermline Press.

Dunfermline’s new water tap