Council makes a refreshing change

Manchester City Council is planning to replace bottled water with tap water at all of its buildings, where possible, before the end of next year.

As part of its commitment to a Greener Manchester, a number of measures are being proposed that include all water coolers being converted to use tap water and all council meetings only serving tap water.

Currently more than half of the water coolers in council offices outside of the town hall now use tap water, with plans to increase this to 70% by early next year.

This reduction in the use of bottled water has been accompanied by the increased use of re-useable glass bottles for serving tap water in meetings.

Councillor Bernard Priest, Executive Member for Finance and Human Resources says: "Manchester's tap water is amongst the best in the world and we are determined to lead the way in promoting the use of drinking water.

"Everyone can benefit from drinking tap water and even in large offices drinking water can be made available without damage to the environment and at a reasonable cost."

Councillor Richard Cowell, Executive Member for Environment adds: "As a council we are constantly reviewing our policies and actively looking for ways to make Manchester as green as possible. By using re-useable glass bottles, we are reducing plastic usage as well as delivery vehicle movement, all of which we are confident will help to reduce environmental damage."

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