Research tells us that consumers would prefer to refill their reusable water bottles rather than buy a virgin bottle from a retailer. Aside from the cost, this would reduce demand for single-use plastics and would encourage more local authorities and businesses to provide drinking water refill facilities.
This is exactly what co-cre8 has done, in partnership with Sodexo, by installing some of the first ‘Hydration Stations’ at Manchester University NHS Foundation. To promote this innovative initiative, Barking Dog created a PR campaign targeting the public sector and the business community, as well as informing local Manchester media.
This new initiative will help encourage visitors and staff to move away from buying single-use bottled water to reduce the amount of plastic in circulation.
A number of these Hydration Stations have been installed at high-footfall locations at the Royal Manchester Children’s’ Hospital and St Mary’s Hospital. These units dispense free water refills for visitors and staff using their own reusable drinks vessel. If people don’t have a bottle, then no problem; the station also dispenses co-cre8’s groundbreaking Honest Bottle as well.
Honest Sales and Marketing Manager, Georgia Bell, says that “Each 500ml water refill eradicates, on average, 12g of single-use plastic. During the six months that the hydration stations have been in use almost 50kg of plastic waste has been avoided. Considering that more than 2.5 billion units of bottled water1 are sold through UK retail outlets each year, there is an opportunity to eradicate 34,000 tonnes of single-use plastic, providing that water refill stations are in greater abundance than they are today. This is one small step that will facilitate this change”.
