Places Leisure join Refill campaign

Places Leisure have joined forces with the Refill Campaign along with other big brands including John Lewis, Costa and Morrisons, by publicly displaying the opportunity for customers to top up their water bottles for free.

The leisure management company have coincidentally signed up just in time for National Refill Day which took place on Wednesday 19^th June 2019. Brought to communities across the UK by the City to Sea as part of the award-winning Refill Campaign, National Refill Day aims to get the UK public to stop bottling it when it comes to our drinking water.

The day forms part of a public awareness campaign to help prevent millions of single use plastic bottles from polluting our streets and our oceans by encouraging people to switch from a single use plastic bottle to a reusable water bottle and refill on the go.

Chris Cregg, Head of Catering and Retail at Places Leisure said, “We are proud to support this national campaign and it just so happens that we have officially signed up on National Refill Day, which aims to make carrying a reusable water bottle a new social norm and prevent millions of single use plastic water bottles being used.

“Refilling water bottles is something that we have always offered at all of our centres where we operate catering, however through support of this important campaign we hope to raise awareness of this and ensure that other members of the public in our communities, and not just our customers, are aware that they can visit us for a quick top-up when they are on-the-go. As a social enterprise we have a responsibility to ensure that we give our customers the option to make sustainable choices that benefit the environment and support future generations.”

As part of the campaign, supporters register on the dedicated FREE Refill App which enables people within a community to easily find their nearest refill stations. Stickers are placed within the window of the facilities registered on the App to promote their involvement in the scheme.

Rebecca Burgess, CEO of City to Sea, the organisation behind the Refill campaign, said: “We’re really pleased to welcome Places Leisure to the Refill Revolution on National Refill Day! Their support makes it even easier for everyone to find free drinking water on the go. People from all walks of life are carrying a reusable bottle now and with Places Leisure providing free refills it puts the power in people’s hands to prevent plastic pollution.

According to the Environmental Audit Committee over the last 15 years, the consumption of bottled water has doubled in the UK. Of the 13 billion plastic bottles used each year – an estimated 7.7 billion, or nearly 60% are plastic water bottles! Sadly, it’s been estimated that almost half of these bottles are NOT recycled and around 15 million plastic bottles are littered, landfilled or incinerated every day – ending up in our natural environment and flowing into our oceans!  

Earlier last year the social enterprise, Places Leisure made a commitment to reduce its plastic usage within all of its sites and implemented a number of initiatives to reduce its impact.