Water Fountains In, Plastic Bottles Out at Borough Market : A London Market Aims to Eradicate Waste Plastic Bottles with New Fountains

London’s Borough Market is installing drinking fountains as it aims to fight pollution from plastic waste and phase out the sale of bottled water.

Earlier this year, the London Assembly published a report that brought into sharp focus the growing blight of plastic bottles on London’s environment.

According to the report, the city’s population currently consumes more bottles of water per capita than any other English region—amounting to a total of around 7.7 billion bottles per year - and yet has a low recycling rate.

As a result, discarded plastic bottles make up 10% of all litter found in the Thames, and the impact on river life is pretty desperate: three-quarters of flounder swimming in the Thames were found to have ingested plastic.

Borough Market said that for many years now it has been making efforts to minimise its own impact on the environment, as part of its broader campaign to champion sustainable systems of food production and consumption.

For example, it noted that none of the waste disposed of in the Market currently goes to landfill - cardboard, paper, plastic, glass and wood are all recycled and food waste is sent to an anaerobic digestion plant—and the packaging provided by traders is almost entirely bio-degradable and compostable.

It said that the next challenge is to go entirely plastic-free, and that means phasing out the sale of single-use water bottles.

The Market’s first step has been to install three new drinking fountains, providing visitors with easy access to free water. Each fountain provides three streams of water: two to be drunk from and one to refill water bottles.

Over the next six months, sales of bottled water will be phased out across the estate. Plans are in place to instead produce refillable bottles made from recycled plastic, which will be available to buy from stalls around the Market.

The market said that its hopes to provide water for its millions of visitors without adding to the mountains of plastic that choke up our rivers and oceans, others might be inspired to follow its example.

“By using the new Borough Fountains our visitors will be able to refill and refresh without having to buy a plastic bottle each time,” said Darren Henaghan, the Market’s managing director.

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