The city of Paris, France renationalised water supply in 2010 and is now one of 500 cities that provide water free to everyone who needs it in public fountains all around the city. Visitors, and locals in those cities can refill water bottles and even cool down like in the photo below of Vienna, Austria.

Like having public toilets, having access to water fountains on the street benefits everyone equally, and is particularly important for visitors to our city, and for people who do not have access to their own supply of water, such as homeless people. Water is actually a UN Human Right and so making it available in this way helps the city fulfil it’s requirements in this way, as well as being compassionate and fair.

Public water fountains also reduce the need for plastic water bottles. It is estimated that 100 million water bottles are produced around the world annually, and as these are made of plastic, a large amount of oil and water is consumed to produce these bottles, and that the carbon cost of water bottles is about one third as big as the carbon footprint of the whole world aviation industry or a country such as Greece!

So why not Dublin? We can join the club of progressive cities like Paris and Vienna, be kind to our citizens and visitors, cut our damage to our living environment, and get better (non-plastic) tasting water!