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Venice Tells Tourists – Drink From Water Fountains
Venetian officials want thirsty tourists to stop swigging from their bottles of mineral water and use the city’s drinking fountains instead.
A new initiative to cut down on bottled water consumption, and save waste, called “100% Public” (www.100X100pubblica.it), was launched on World Environment Day, last Thursday
Near Piazzale Roma, where most tourists arrive in the city, visitors are now handed a kit consisting of an empty plastic bottle and a map showing the location of 122 fountains across Venice from which they can fill and refill with drinking water flowing from the city’s acqueducts.
The bottles will be labelled with a chemical analysis of the water that gushes from the fountains, which the local water authority describes as “super-safe”. The bottles will also carry the slogan: “Don’t throw me away; reuse me”.
Between 18 million and 19 million people visit Venice every year. The millions of plastic bottles the tourists leave behind add to the city’s already considerable waste disposal problems.
The movement started in February when the Venice patriarchate of the Catholic Church called on the faithful to give up mineral water for Lent. A statement put out by its diocesan lifestyle centre said the aim was to “revive a sense of responsibility for the safeguarding of creation”.
According to the Washington DC-based Earth Policy Institute, Italians are the world’s biggest consumers of bottled water, In 2006 they guzzled an astonishing average of 246 litres (54 gallons) a person,
Venice was chosen for the launch of the scheme due to its obvious links with water and its role as a tourist centre. However there are plans to take the project to Italy’s other major cities.
Venice city council is hoping the latest campaign will appeal to Venetians as well as tourists, especially at a time when the Italian economy is slowing. Officials point out that tap water costs just nine eurocents (7p) a litre.
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