Free tap water with Refill London

A wonderful idea, but needs to be rolled out London-wide much quicker. This might make single use bottles reusable as people will be able to top up empty bottles, saving money before disposing of the bottle in a recycling container or bin. Not all areas have street recycling containers.

Enthusiastic about this, and have been using stainless steel water bottles for 10 yrs+.
However - hygiene is a really important issue here.
Interior well monitored/serviced places - fine.
But exterior public water fountains would bother me, as they are rather vulnerable to, well, all sorts of things...

Although a good idea in principle, the water provided needs to be cleaner than tap water. Tap water - especially in London - contains many toxins from being reused (pharmaceuticals, pesticides, plastics etc), can you get better quality water than tap water? I believe people would be happy to pay a small fee for decent quality water refills.

'Street Water' is not in any way new. Towns and cities used to have plenty of public fountains where water could be drunk freely from specially provided ornate build fresh water outlets. Troughs abounded along the highways for horses as well. That said we really do need provision of a trusted fresh water source of uncontaminated and additive free drinking water. We learn recently that bottled water has been seen to be contaminated by micro particles of plastic.

This is an excellent idea, they have drinking water in all the Swiss Alps villages with little ones for dogs lower down.... come to think of it, there used to be one in Highgate Woods. This will definitely encourage reusable vessels, and also encourage people to drink more water, which is meant to be healthy, they say. Great Stuff

A terrific initiative. I had heard of it & plan to use it next time I'm at London Bridge. Anyone who saw David Attenborough's Blue Planet 2 would surely support an initiative that helped reduce the amount of plastic we use. Let's hope this gets a lot of support.

Every time I walk past an old water fountain in London I wonder why they don’t work anymore.

I carry a refillable water bottle with me at all times and it is hard work getting anyone to give me a refill over a counter.

Please expand this scheme over London.

I can't understand the recent obsession with having to have water on tap (no pun intended); obesity may be a major problem in the UK - but is dehydration? In seventy years I've never felt the need for a drink of whilst on the move, and I did, I'd pop in the nearest pub and order a pint of their best.

I think it is a great idea. We are always encouraged to drink lots of water & where we might fill a bottle at home or perhaps work, out & about there isn't really the opportunity or facilities. I hope people would respect it and use them in the intended way and they would be kept clean & undamaged. I would definitely use such a facility

Brilliant. Like when I was a kid, when bottled water could only be bought in restaurants with meals.
Spoke to a younger person today who was astounded that bottled water was not as ubiquitous as it is now 30 years ago.
We are returning to 'normal', before the marketing people convinced us that plastic bottled water from a different country was 'better'.
Hard London tap water tastes very good (not good for washing).
Great campaign.

Any scheme to reduce the use of single-use plastic bottles is very welcome and I applaud organisations providing this service. However, I wonder why people can't buy a multiple-use bottle, fill it at home, re-fill it at work/friend's house/gym/social venue: it always seems to be someone else's responsibility to do the right thing. What are we teaching children in school these days? So take responsibility all you adults out there: don't buy single-use plastic full stop.