‘Water for Free’ App Lists over 1,000 Fountains and Dispensers

The idea of “Water for Free” is  to map out the water fountains and dispensers throughout Hong Kong on Googlemaps and publish it on website.

Luckily, Nuthon IT Solutions Limited volunteered to develop the iPhone app and WYNG Foundation volunteered to develop the Water for Free Android app. By downloading it, one can easily locate a water fountain or dispenser nearby and drink “water for free” rather than paying for outrageously overpriced bottled water. In turn, this reduces the number of plastic bottles entering our landfills and ocean every day.

Thanks to a growing number of users and their efforts in notifying Water for Free of new water dispenser locations, over 1,000 water dispenser locations have been mapped out. In the past year, a number of fast food chains (including McDonalds, Cafe de Coral, Maxim MX and Yoshinoya) have installed water dispensers at their newly renovated branches.

 It reduces the need for bottled water, as it has become more convenient for people to refill their reusable bottles.

In order to step up our efforts to say no to bottled water, 'Water for Free' stepped out of the virtual world. On 25 September, they installed three water dispensers in the West Kowloon Culture Zone to provide Water for Free to all participants of the Pink Dot HK event.

Thanks to the event organiser’s love and support for the environment, they recorded over 3,000 participants drinking water or refilling water bottles from the three dispensers during the five-hour event.

Without these water dispensers, participants would be forced to buy bottled water widely available from the vending machines which are permanently placed in the West Kowloon Zone.

In other words, the presence of our water dispensers there successfully averted 3,000 plus plastic bottles from ending up in landfill or in the ocean.

At the same time, they encouraged participants drinking from our water dispensers to download Water for Free mobile phone app, which can help them locate nearby fountains and dispensers around Hong Kong and make a conscientious effort to abandon the bad habit of buying bottled water.

According to the 2014 Waste Statistics issued by the Environmental Protection Department (EPD), Hong Kong produces 132 tons of PET plastic waste daily. Each bottle weighs about 25 grams. This means that we throw away over 5 million PET bottles per day. Instead of responsibly addressing the waste issue caused by their products, beverage companies spend huge amounts on advertising designed to convince us to buy ever more products.

The fact that their products are filling up our landfills and killing wildlife – birds, fish and sea turtles eat broken pieces of plastic mistaking it for food – is not their problem. It is ours. So we are asking for your help to do your part for the environment: please use a reusable beverage bottles.

Source: Honk Kong Free Press