Water Without Plastic

Description

The recycling rate in Romania is the lowest in the European Union, green initiatives addressed to efficiency and reduction of waste materials are marginal, and alternatives for responsible consumers are either absent, or very poor. The project approaches the need of reduction of consumption of bottled water in order to reduce unnecessary resource use and waste generation. The main objectives are to elaborate and publish a comparative study concerning costs and benefits of consuming bottled water versus tap water, to develop and launch the Water without Plastic campaign to raise awareness among 8000 people and to increase people’s access to quality drinkable water in Iași, distributed through the public system, through advocacy and watchdog activities and by renovating and installing public water pumps. The project will have 10,000 direct beneficiaries and will achieve community involvement, capacity building of NGOs in sustainable development, increased capacity of advocacy and monitoring, increased awareness on plastic consumption and waste generation reduction, increased number of people consuming tap water, reduction of pollution and resource use.

Summary of project results

The project "Water without Plastic" identified the problem of waste produced by the consumption of products which are being packaged in plastic, specifically bottled water, which pollutes the environment and affects human health, or consumes high levels of energy and resources. In order to provide more information to the general public about the industry of bottled water, what are its effects and how they affect us directly or indirectly, and also to encourage more sustainable behaviours such as the consumption of tap water, a practice that has become subject of myths and fears very little documented in the Romanian space, there were conducted several types of activities. The study "Water without plastic. An analysis of water quality. Case study" was carried out and published on www.apafaraplastic.ro, a platform developed under the project. Besides this publication, the ecological map of Iasi city was updated, both in online format, which can be found on www.hartaeco.ro, as well as in printed version, 4,000 copies were printed. The map includes information, for the citizens of Iasi and not only, on the eco-friendly places and events in the locality. The promoter also managed to reach 50 commercial and/or private spaces with their offline campaign, "Support Water without Plastic", a campaign that managed to convince various legal entities to provide their customers and employees tap water instead of bottled water. Another activity was the replacement of 7 water pumps and installing 5 other such pumps in places where they did not exist. Additionally, the organisation conducted a petition in which they demanded the local administration to install 10 additional pumps in the districts of Iasi. The petition was signed by over 1,000 people, enough for the Iasi City Hall representatives to commit to installing the street pumps. The promoter directly addressed the public in Iasi, but also from other areas, through public events, each with one interactive component: the “World Water Day” and “World Environment Day” were organised and the promoter also participated with this project during 3 other festivals, namely “FanFest” - Rosia Montana, “Gfest” - Iasi and “IarmarEco” - Chisinau. The organisation also had over 30 presentations to a total of 1,100 high schools and elementary schools students, in Iasi and its proximity.

Summary of bilateral results