Installation of Bottle Filling Water Fountains

For their 2018 LAPN-funded project, Wicklow County Council worked with secondary schools to address the issue of plastic bottle use in Irish secondary schools. Water fountains were installed in three different schools, and their usage assessed.

One school surveyed students and found that, after their internal campaign, the number of students purchasing single use bottles reduced from 80% to 28% after 6 months. Based on the success of the initial fountains others have now been added by some of the schools. In addition, reusable bottles are now given to new students of one school and another has banned the use of single use bottles after the success of their refill station.

Following on from the above, previous successful installation of bottle filling water fountains in schools, Wicklow County Council is installing further fountains in libraries and additional schools.