ReFILL Water Station in The Triangle Bude

Aim

A ReFILL Water Station to fill up your re-usable water bottles with pure Cornish tap water for free!

ReFILL BUDE – FROM A SIMPLE IDEA TO REDUCE THE NUMBER OF SINGLE USE PLASTIC BOTTLES LITTERING OUR BEACHES… TO A WATER ReFILL STATION IN THE CENTRE OF BUDE FOR THE WHOLE COMMUNITY TO USE! 

ReFILL is a simple idea which started in a deckchair, outside a beach hut on Crooklets! So many people are joining the #ReFILLRevolution that it seems a logical move to bring back a drinking water fountain to The Triangle. I have been told that, in the old days there was a drinking fountain there …now I want to install a modern, 21st century ReFILL station and a drinking fountain back to Bude, the home of ReFILL. Free pure Cornish Tap for everyone to drink!

BACKGROUND INFO

I founded and launched REFILL in 2014 with Neil Hembrow from  Keep Britain Tidy’s Beachcare Project.

Take a look at both ReFILL Bude, on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and  ReFILL Cornwall on Facebook.

There is a great video to share on ReFILL Cornwall which sums up ReFILL in a ‘nutshell – or water droplet!’

Bude Sea Pool administers ReFILL water bottles and I run ReFILL eco hot drinks cups.  Bude Sea Pool receive 100% profit from every bottle and Cup sold. I also help run ReFILL Cornwall with Beachcare, Clean Cornwall, Cornwall Wildlife Trust and me!

MY SIMPLE IDEA…. HOW WE GOT IT OFF THE GROUND

I have been cleaning Crooklets for 8 years as part of Beachcare, running a beach clean group and leading a clean every month. As an avid beach cleaner I was fed up picking up lots of single use, often non-recycled plastic water bottles containing water that had come hundreds of miles from its source, had been sitting in plastic for ages, and costing a ridiculous amount of money…for the water inside it, for the bottle costs, for the transportation costs, for the storage costs in warehouses….

Neil from Beachcare and I were sitting at my beach hut at Crooklets one afternoon, and over our cup of tea were ranting about water in bottles and the amount we were picking up and… we came up with ReFILL! It was a really simple ides (most of the best ideas are if you think about it).  Take a refillable, reusable water bottle into cafes etc and get pure Cornish tap for free! Add in a community element so the local community benefit by selling the bottles and making a profit for the locals. It had to be Bude Sea Pool as I am on the committee and obviously very passionate about it. We approached Tom at Rosie’s Kitchen, Crooklets and they trialled it for me – and what a success. All profits since the launch in 2014 go to Bude Sea Pool and we have sold thousands of ReFILL bottles! The media were slow to pick it up at first but with the recent focus on issues around avoidable, single use plastic it has been overwhelming. Natalie Fee took the concept up to Bristol and her City to Sea Project has gained funding to launch the ReFILL App and spread the message nationwide…ReFILL London has recently launched!

What is unique about ReFILL Bude and ReFILL Cornwall (apart from how we use a mix of lower and upper case letters, our tap and water droplet logo!) is the fact ReFILL here has the community at the heart – Cornwall Wildlife Trust for example have purchased ReFILL bottles for their marine groups to sell to raise much needed funds. As is the case here in Bude, ReFILL bottles now fund themselves and profits go towards keeping Bude Sea Pool open. Together with reducing the amount of plastic bottles of water being consumed here…it has been a ‘no brainer’! All cafes, restaurants, shops support ReFILL and not one café has refused to join in the scheme even though they are potentially losing sales. Bude and Stratton Town Council for example have removed their water bottles from sale offering free pure Cornish tap instead!

The local community will always be at the heart of ReFILL. It is great that the project has now gone national with City to Sea and I am very proud that the ReFILL Revolution started from a Beach Hut here in Bude and that the simple idea is reducing the amount of single use, avoidable plastic bottles ending up on our beaches or going to landfill. I have a few more ideas to take ReFILL Bude further with other products… watch this space!

This project successfully funded on 15th July 2018