One in a series of posts celebrating World Tap Water Week at Green Thing.
All over the world, people are spreading the word: All you need is tap.
1. Give Me Tap is a UK-based campaign which gets restaurants on board in providing free tap water. You can locate places that will refill your bottle for free!
2. Neau is genius. Based in the Netherlands, Neau sells empty reusable bottles for the price of a standard bottle of water.
3. Both Unicef and Wateraid have been up to similar great stuff when it comes to tap. Unicef’s Tap Project and Wateraid’s Tap into Wateraid get diners to donate cash when eating out at participating restaurants. At the restaurants, where the water is normally free, customers have the option to pay for tap and the proceeds go to clean drinking water projects around the world.
4. This is such an interesting campaign because the hotels (especially luxury resorts, like the Fairmont) are not known for having the best track record of sustainable practices. Hotels usually have a well stocked bar fridge complete with complimentary bottled water. But, the Fairmont Vancouver gives guests the choice between bottled and tap.
5. Join the Pipe is SO cool. They’re literally trying to build a pipeline, through building a social network based on people who drink tap. Members can get a bottle shaped like a piece of a pipe and in theory actually build a mega big pipeline.
6. Tappening: If the bottled water industry can lie, so can we. Brilliant.
7. Parts of two former British colonies: Canada and Australia. This may seem like an odd seventh place, but several Canadian and Australian cities have legally banned the sale of bottled water, through citizen led campaigns. That’s pretty cool.
Honourable mention:
We Want Tap. Although they’re supported by Belu, a bottled water company, Belu has some good stuff going on.
(This post is part of a series on Green Thing for World Tap Water Week. Find out more!)
Katherine Hui is currently the Social site editor at Green Thing, a web-based public service in London that inspires people to lead greener lives through creative content.
Before this, she worked as the Development Manager at Social Innovation Camp, an organization that encourages people to use web and mobile-based technology to mobilise social change. She oversaw 300 ideas submission and helped build 20 prototypes – five of which have gone on to get further funding or investment.
Katherine’s came over to the UK form Canada in 2007 for an MSc program at the London School of Economics. Before arriving in London, she managed a small environmental start-up in Vancouver called the Canadian Climate Change Alliance.
Katherine is football mad. She is a loyal supporter of Arsenal FC, plays for Islington Borough Ladies FC and coaches for Gunners in Islington in her spare time. Her second favourite hobby is kite surfing and she can sometimes be found chasing the wind.
