Ireland to reduce single-use plastic bottles with free water access

The nation-wide initiative is growing in popularity among citizens and local businesses

Here is one more thing to love about Ireland – the coordinated efforts of both public authorities, business and society to protect the environment. There is another concrete initiative that we would like to share with you today, that has been growing in popularity lately. For a while now, the country is trying to reduce the number of plastic water bottles by providing free access to drinking water around its territory.

A voluntary environmental project, Refill Ireland wants to turn Ireland into a tap water refilling country again. According to their website refill.ie, there are already more than 850 publicly accessible locations where one can refill their multi-use water bottle for free, thereby reducing considerably the need to purchase plastic water bottles. The access to free water is facilitated enormously by the online TAP MAP showing a list with all locations, which can be filtered by town or city and type.

Not only is the initiative highly popular among locals, but it is also attractive environmentally conscious businesses, which provide locations for tap stations in their property. The costs for businesses is particularly low, estimated at around 1.16 euros per 1000 litres of water.

Single use plastic, among which the water bottles, represent one of the main sources of pollution in public spaces and the environment. What is more, it is one of the most likely items to end up out of the bins so it is of utmost importance to cut down on their use.