50 new water fountains in London to cut plastic waste

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has revealed the locations of 50 new water fountains in the capital to help cut plastic waste.

Distributed across shopping and business districts, green spaces, busy high streets and stations, the water fountains are being installed across busy areas of London to help people ditch single-use plastic bottles and reduce plastic waste.

The Mayor has partnered with Thames Water on the new water fountain network, which will include 20 rail and Underground stations.

The average Londoner currently buys more than three plastic water bottles every week, equating to 175 bottles every year per person, and Khan wants to encourage Londoners to use refillable water bottles instead.

The fountains are easily identifiable by a water droplet design and each one is fitted with a device to measure the amount of water dispensed to demonstrate the equivalent number of single-use plastic bottles saved.

Londoners can also access free drinking water from more than 2,500 cafes, shops and businesses offering free tap water through the Refill London scheme, with participating outlets putting easily identifiable Refill stickers in their windows. 

Khan said: "With plastics polluting our oceans and causing untold harm to life in our rivers and waterways, it’s vital that we all make changes to reduce plastic waste. Delivering more water fountains in London and ensuring that our shops and cafes offer free tap water is an important part of my work to help Londoners easily make small changes that will have a big environmental impact. Our network of water fountains will help people refill on the go and become much-loved additions to our public spaces, stations and busy areas of the capital."

Natalie Fee, Founder of City to Sea said: “These new fountains will be added to the growing number of 2,500 other Refill stations in London where it’s possible to refill for free and are vital in our mission to prevent plastic pollution at source. The campaign is clocking up hundreds of thousands of refills already, proving that people will change their behaviour – by not buying plastic bottled water – when free drinking water is readily available.”