Whatever happened to drinking fountains? A petition with over 100 signatures was presented by Councillor Duncan to the December meeting of the Environment Committee of the City Council on installing drinking fountains across the city. When I was a child drinking fountains were a common and much used facility. Most school playgrounds and parks had them. The petition reminded me that they have largely disappeared. Rather than drinking from a fountain - or indeed filling a reusable container from a fountain - we now buy water in plastic bottles. Often this water is expensive specual water imported from abroad. The bottles are used once before being disposed off as rubbish. Thinking about this for a short while it all seems a bit odd. Water from the tap in this country is clean, pure and healthy - and a fraction of the cost of fashionable mineral water. The official reply to the petition mentioned that drinking founatins had been installed as part of the renewal works at The Lvel, but aprat from that there were a series of not entirely convincing reasons why it was not possible to install a network of drinking founatins across the City. Rather than just leave it at that as a first step I have this weekend written this to the Chief Executive of Southern Water- Public drinking fountains Many of us of my age remember drinking fountains as a feature of parks, schools, open spaces and the seafront. For reasons that I do not entirely understand they seem to have completely disappeared from public open spaces. We now have the absurd situation that many £millions are spent on mineral water, supplied in plastic bottles. Call me old-fashioned but I cannot understand this when the water from your taps is clean, safe and often tastier than the stuff in the bottles - and that is before we even consider the damage done to the environment by the manufacture and disposal of the plastic bottles the mineral water comes in. Brighton and Hove City Council was recently presented with a petition by some residents asking for the provision of water fountains in public open spaces across the city. Various unconvincing reasons were given as to why this was too difficult but it struck me as a thoroughly good idea. The reason I am therefore writing to you is to ask whether Southern Water would consider installing water fountains again? Your product is pure, clean and healthy and it would be great to see less use of imported spa water in plastic bottles. It would be a fantastic gesture of goodwill - and also good publicity for Southern Water and your product. I thought it was worth a go - and will update here any reply I get.
Posted on: Mon, 22 Dec 2014 09:22:45 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015