Author: publicwaterproject

Looking for a place to refill your bottle?

We’re excited by the launch of RefillNZ which is trying to increase the number of places you can fill up your water bottle (even where there aren’t any fountains nearby!).

In New Zealand an estimated 828 million single-use plastic bottles are thrown away per year, (that’s about 168 each) = 165 Olympic swimming pools. Lilah is very passionate about saving the ocean from this plastic waste and this is one of her strong drivers for Public Water Project.

We love that RefillNZ aims to make refilling with tap water the new norm – by making free water more freely available. They’ve reached out to businesses like dairies and shops and asked them to become Refill stations, enabling members of the public to fill up their water bottles at their taps, for free!

Participating businesses have a RefillNZ sticker in their window – keep an eye out for them when you are around and about, or grab their app here and find the nearest refill station easily!

Kate x

Gold Coast water fountains

In August my family and I traveled to the Gold Coast. Although we were only there for a week, I noticed rapid change in the amount of Public Water fountains available. They were obviously thinking about their community, as a vast majority of the water fountains were wheelchair accessible.

Here is a snipit of how many we saw:

The Surf Lifesaving Club had provided shower ‘blocks’ with integrated water fountains – its a great idea but research has also shown that people don’t always like drinking water in areas for bathing.
Lilah was excited to discover multi purpose water fountains similar to the ones we want to install in Auckland!

Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink!

Lilah and I headed down to Lake Pupuke today to feed the ducks and check out the public water availability at the park by the Pumphouse.

We walked throughout the park and could not find a water tap or bubbler anywhere handy…it wasn’t until we had jumped in the car to go home that we drove past the Takapuna Muncipal Pool that we saw a water fountain on the street, not even near the pool entrance but at the back of the pool, by two streets and not easily accessible from the park.

You can play but you can’t drink

Lilah and I have been checking out our local parks for water fountains and taps – just to see exactly how easy it is for us to choose water as a healthy option.

We spent some time at the new playground at Takapuna Beach reserve – an extremely busy location – and rightly so, it’s an amazing playground!

While there is a small water park area with a tap for the kids to play with over a sandpit, there is not one water fountain, bubbler or tap for filling bottles at the playground.

We finally found one, a short walk away from the playground but it was simply a small tap under a shower for the beachgoers.

Over $500,000 was invested in building this playground. Why wasn’t the council sensible enough to include a water fountain and water tap?

Kate