WHAT AROUSED MY CURIOUSITY was seeing the man from the local video library walking down the road with several water bottles to fill for staff, rather than simply taking new bottles of filtered water from the shop’s refrigerator.
Where he was bound was to a recent initiative of Manly Council in seaside Sydney. As part of Council’s efforts to reduce their carbon footprint — council plans to be carbon neutral by the end of 2010 — a number of filtered water stations have been istalled along The Corso, the pedestrian way that connects ferry wharf to surfing beach.
Each station features a bubbler and a tap for filling bottles, although you see people occasionally drinking straight from the tap than from the bubbler. The service is provided for Council by Callaghan Water.
Manufacturing PET bottles for a single use followed by disposal to landfill, transporting the bottles (each litre of filtered or spring water in a bottle weighs a kilogram, and that soon adds up both in weight, fuel and carbon emissions), the carbon cost of refrigeration at point of sale — shop or supermarket — then the carbon cost of recovering reusable materials from the recycled PET or of disposing of discarded bottles is what accounts or the substantial carbon and waste costs of bottled, filtered water.
The value of this initiative lies in Council’s proactive initiative and its innovative approach to dealing with a growing waste and carbon emission probem.
Rating
INNOVATION/DESIGN THINKING: Medium to high.
A partial solution to a clear and present problem that can be only fully addressed by state government through legislation.
Explanatory notes on the stations useful in explaining the initiative.
Needed wider public promotion and education campaign to popularise more.
SCALABILITY POTENTIAL: High.
REPLICABILITY: High. The technology exists and has now been field tested. Needs motivation, funding and political will to for implementation by other local governments and businesses.
