Thousands of places to refill your drink mapped out in new app
16 June 2023
More than 2,000 places to eat, drink and shop with less plastic have been mapped across Wales on an innovative new app.
Environmental group City to Sea, which runs the Refill app, made the announcement to mark World Refill Day on June 16 – a global public awareness campaign to prevent plastic pollution and help people live with less waste.
World Refill Day aims to accelerate the transition away from single-use plastic and towards refill and reuse systems. The campaign brings together everyday activists, sustainable businesses, and organisations to highlight solutions to the plastic crisis.
The Refill app has now been downloaded half a million times and lists more than 340,000 places across the globe where people can fill up with free drinking water, find plastic-free shopping options or save on hot drinks and food-to-go when they bring their reusables.
The Welsh arm of the Refill campaign, Refill Cymru, has had the backing of the Welsh Government which themselves pledged for Wales to become the first ‘Refill Nation’.
Commenting, City to Sea’s Head of Development, Jane Martin said: “This is a massive milestone – there are now over 2,000 places to refill in Wales. We’ve been working with partners all across Wales to expand the refill and reuse offering. This means whether you’re walking the coastal paths, shopping in Cardiff city centre or just commuting to work you’re never far from somewhere to refill your water bottle, coffee cup or lunch spot.
“World Refill Day is designed to get people talking about the problem, and crucially to highlight the solutions and help people take action to reduce waste. Our small changes might not seem like much on their own, but added together, we can make a huge difference, showing big brands, businesses and governments that we want and need to see urgent action to tackle the plastic crisis.
“We urgently need to shift from our disposable, single-use culture to a more sustainable, circular future, with reuse and refill at the centre. The good news is, we already have the tools we need to change the world.”
Gwilym Pugh, the Welsh model and musician who is also one of this year’s World Refill Day Ambassadors added: “World Refill Day is more than a call to use a reusable bottle or cup, it’s about bringing together the power of individuals to create system change.”
Cardiff and Vale University Health Board has teamed with Refill Cymru and Awesome Wales this World Refill Day to celebrate some of the community action taking place.
Awesome Wales is a social enterprise focused on providing plastic-free fruit and has a zero-waste store based in Barry. It also hosts the fresh produce stall at University Hospital of Wales for fruit, vegetables and dried goods.
The stall allows staff, patients and visitors to pick up healthy products and snacks without single use plastics. They can even refill their herbs and spices on site. Awesome Wales also runs a variety of community projects including the Benthyg library of things, cloth nappy library and work with the Sustrans E-Move electric bike hire project.
Amy Greenfield, Director of Awesome at Awesome Wales, said: “The UHW fresh produce stall has been really embraced by staff on site, they're enjoying the reduced packaging and really getting into the swing of bringing their containers for refill. We're so pleased that Cardiff and Vale University Health Board has supported the project so far and we are hoping to support similar projects with other Welsh health boards in the future.”
In the past, City to Sea worked with Cardiff and Vale University Health Board to launch a new Hydration Toolkit as part of their Healthy Workplaces programme. The hydration toolkit is an easy to use resource for employers to not only ensure their employees are keeping hydrated and healthy, but a chance to drive behaviour change around using reusables bottles in the workplace and make a positive impact on their single use plastic metrics.
Rebecca Stewart, a Principal Public Health Specialist at Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, stated: “Refill is a priority within our Move More Eat Well partnership plan for Cardiff and Vale of Glamorgan in support of sustainable ways to encourage healthy hydration and eating across our communities. This World Refill Day it’s great to see Awesome Wales on our site at University Hospital Wales supplying plastic free healthy fruit, veg and foods to staff and visitors for snacks and cooking healthy meals.”
City To Sea has also been awarded funding from the Landfill Disposals Tax Community Scheme (LDTCS) administered by the WCVA to help cut plastic pollution in Cardiff over the next two years. The expanded campaign will increase the number of locations and types of businesses listed on the app in Cardiff, helping to make re-use and refill the new social norm. Customers will be encouraged to use the app to find out where to refill everything from their water bottle, coffee cup, and lunch box, to household cleaning products and toiletries.