Businesses and residents across Bridgend County Borough are being urged to show that they have the bottle to help reduce plastic pollution by supporting National Refill Day on Wednesday 19 June.
Here’s some facts about the volume of plastic that we currently use:
- The average person in the UK will use 150 plastic water bottles every year, or around three a week.
- If just one in 10 Brits refilled a reusable bottle just once a week, it would save around 340 million plastic bottles every year!
- The manufacturing process for a water bottle requires three times the amount of water needed to fill it.
- Each plastic bottle can take up to one thousand years to decompose, leaking dangerous and harmful chemicals during the process
- A million plastic bottles are sold every minute around the world, and that figure is expected to grow by 20 per cent by 2021.
The campaign aims to make single-use plastic bottles a thing of the past by encouraging people to carry a reusable bottle instead.
Businesses can register to say that they are willing to welcome people to refill their bottles on their premises by going online at www.refill.org.uk, while anyone who needs a drink on the go can download the free ‘Refill’ app to see where they can fill up their reusable bottle.
Bridgend County Borough Council is proud to support the campaign, with Deputy Leader, Cllr Hywel Williams saying:
“The amount of plastic bottles that get littered and end up in rivers and oceans, impacting on wildlife around the world is absolutely astonishing.
“Closer to home, when school children recently conducted litter picks on local beaches the most common littered material that they found here was plastic too.
“We know that many local people are concerned about the scourge of global plastic pollution and want to do something about it. National Refill Day is about getting everyone to say no to single-use plastics and instead take a refillable bottle with them.
“I would encourage cafes, bars, restaurants and other local businesses to sign up so that passers-by know that they are welcome to fill up their bottles with free tap water.
“And don’t forget, if you can’t avoid drinking from a single-use plastic bottle, please put it in a bin or take it home to be recycled.”