New initiative to combat single-use plastic bottles at Share Discovery Village

The lakeside charity based on the outskirts of Lisnaskea have introduced the initiative to encourage their customers to not use single-use plastic bottles.

'Refill' is an award winning campaign designed to help individuals reduce their plastic pollution, by making it easier to refill reusable water bottles instead of buying a plastic one.

Share Discovery Village signed up to the "revolution" after becoming aware of some of the statistics regarding the use of plastic bottles.

CEO Peter McEvoy commented: “It was quite shocking to find out that the average person in the UK will use 150 plastic water bottles every year. If just one in ten people refilled once a week, we’d have 340 million less plastic bottles a year in circulation."

He continued: "Our leisure suite staff alerted us to the campaign and noted that the majority of our members used single-use bottles that were getting thrown out after sessions. Some members would ask for us to refill their bottle so we thought it would be a great idea to become an official 'Refill Station' to try and encourage everyone attending the leisure suite to do their bit and use a reusable bottle."

Since the introduction of the initiative at Share, Leisure Suite staff member Susan Hall has already seen an "encouraging" increase in the number of people using reusable bottles at the centre. Susan said: “Since we got the sign on the door and mentioned it to our regular members, we have noticed several of them now ditching the plastic bottles and coming to ask us for a refill with their reusable bottles – it’s great to see,”

National Refill Day took place on June 19 and the campaign is encouraging everyone to go public if they have #GotTheBottle to help create a new social norm for carrying a reusable water bottle and making sure everyone, everywhere, knows how easy it is to find free drinking water with 'Refill.'