Saddleworth Greens call for installation of safe public drinking fountains to stem plastic tide.

Typical litter left at Dovestones after people have had a day out.

Green Campaigners in Saddleworth are urging the council and water companies to look at the installation of public drinking fountains to combat the ever-increasing mountain of plastic pollution.

Brian Banawich a Green Campaigner from Saddleworth said: "Public drinking fountains were originally introduced to combat the menace of disease by providing free and clean drinking water to people.

"They have fallen out of fashion with the huge rise in sales of bottled drinking water but this has led to the huge problem of plastic pollution in our local environment.

"They can be used safely and sensibly to refill plastic water bottles while keeping to covid-safety measures.

"Plastic water bottles are by far the most common item we collect while litter-picking and I know this is the case with most local litterpicking groups I've spoken to."

Refill.org.uk a national campaign to reduce the amount of plastic waste linked to drinking water estimate we use 35 million bottles of plastic water each day in the UK and almost 40% of children in the UK use bottled water rather than tap water.

Many of these bottles end up littering our local environment and waterways. 

Brian added: "We need to reverse the trend and encourage people to refill water bottles rather than continually buy them.

"Public drinking fountains are just one measure to take plastic drinking bottles out of circulation and we need to get creative if we are to make inroads into this problem .

"Some councils have realised this and are starting to reintroduce public drinking fountains as a way of reducing litter from plastic bottles.

"London is set to reintroduce 100 new drinking fountains and this is something Oldham needs to consider if we are serious about the environment.

"We have already contacted United Utilities about a water fountain at Dovestone to reduce the large amount of plastic waste visitors leave at the site."

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