Bluestone Announces New Partnership With Refill Wales And Says No To Plastic H2o
On World Refill Day, (16th June) Bluestone National Park Resort has announced that plastic bottled water will no longer be sold anywhere at the resort.
The move forms part of a new partnership with environmental organisation City to Sea, which is behind the award-winning national Refill campaign and app which helps people to eat, drink and shop with less plastic.
The decision to remove all plastic bottled water from sale is part of a long-term sustainability drive for Bluestone. Two years ago, all staff were given reusable drinks flasks, which reduced plastic water bottles and disposable coffee cups used in staff areas by over 12,000 items per year.
Now the popular family resort is going one step further by removing water in plastic bottles from sale across the site, a move which will come into full effect a month later (16th July) to kick off the start of their Summer Festival Season.
It’s estimated that this will prevent a further 25,000 plastic bottles from being used each year; instead, visitors will be encouraged to prepare for their visit by packing a reusable water bottle and filling them up for free. Guests are also offered a 10% discount on hot drinks if they bring a reusable cup to any of the resort’s outlets instead of asking for a takeaway cup.
Visitors to the resort will also be encouraged to download the Refill app, which allows them to search for hundreds of tap water Refill stations around Wales, where they will be able to fill up on the go, for free. Refill Wales is part-funded by the Welsh Government to increase the availability of high-quality drinking water throughout the country.
Plastic Pollution Risking Mental Health Benefit Of Time Spent Outdoors
Bluestone’s announcement comes as the results of a new poll commissioned by City to Sea, in partnership with Friends of the Earth, found that 61% of UK adults in Wales said that the Covid-19 pandemic made them realise that spending time outdoors / in nature is important to their sense of mental wellbeing.
But the research also found that these crucial mental health benefits are being put at risk as a result of the prevalence of plastic pollution.
More than half of the Welsh responders (55%) reported feeling angry and frustrated (45%) about seeing plastic/litter when spending time outdoors / in nature.
But encouragingly, the research also showed that a whopping 88% of Welsh consumers are concerned about plastic pollution, and almost three-quarters (74%) agree they would like to see more refill/reuse options available as a way to reduce this.
Speaking about Bluestone’s move to cut single-use plastic at the resort, Marten Lewis, Head of Corporate Responsibility at Bluestone said: “A long-term ambition of ours is to eliminate unnecessary single-use plastic across the resort – and as City to Sea’s research demonstrates, our customers care about this too. We have made significant progress, already reducing our single-use material by 200,000 items in 2019.
We know there is still more to be done, but this latest announcement marks a great step forward, and we want to thank our teams and of course, our guests, for all their efforts to reduce reliance on single-use plastic as we continue to work towards a more sustainable future.”
The UK has some of the best drinking water in the world, and at Bluestone, around 60% of the tap water comes from a natural borehole – providing high-quality, natural drinking water which is free for staff and guests.
There are already three dedicated Refill stations on the resort, and another three will be added before the Summer Festival season.
Hannah Osman, Refill Wales manager from City to Sea added: “This new partnership between Bluestone National Park Resort and Refill Wales is a significant step forward for the campaign. I hope this shows other tourist attractions and businesses in Wales who are thinking about making a similar commitment that not only is it welcomed by environmental campaigners, but by customers and visitors, too.”
Welsh Government Minister for Climate Change, Julie James said: “I’m so proud of how far we’ve come in looking to eradicate single-use plastics and reusable water bottles are a small step towards this. Over the past year, we’ve seen a bigger reliance on single-use plastic, but by reminding people to reuse and refill, I hope will see it becoming a social norm.
“With more businesses joining Refill, it allows Wales to become a step closer in becoming the World’s first Refill Nation. I’d encourage businesses of all sizes to sign-up to Refill to allow Welsh customers a better chance of helping the environment.”
REDUCE, REUSE, REFILL, REPEAT THIS WORLD REFILL DAY
World Refill Day is a global public awareness campaign to prevent plastic pollution and help people live with less waste. City to Sea, along with thousands of individuals, community groups, sustainable businesses, and NGOs will be calling on big businesses and governments, telling them that we need to see action to tackle plastic pollution and reuse as the solution.
The UK public can support World Refill Day by making small changes to their everyday shopping, reducing single-use plastic, and finding out what they can refill or reuse near them. Using the hashtag #WorldRefillDay, we’ll be encouraging people to inspire change by telling the world why they choose to reuse and sharing photos of them with their reusable bottles, cups, and containers on social media.
To make life easier for people that are looking to take steps to reduce plastic, City to Sea’s free Refill app now lists more than 200,000 locations around the world where people can eat, drink and shop.
The Refill app has already been downloaded more than 350,000 times and saved millions of items of single-use plastic items from ending up in our waste stream, demonstrating the collective power of individual action on the planet.
ENDS
NOTES TO EDITORS
World Refill Day on the 16th June 2021, is a global public awareness campaign to help people live with less plastic. City to Sea has pioneered the campaign in the UK for the last two years (as National Refill Day) and is now expanding, creating a shared global platform to support the transition towards reuse and prevent plastic pollution. For more information on World Refill Day, please see the World Refill Day media toolkit: https://bit.ly/WRDDigitalToolkit
City to Sea is a not-for-profit organisation campaigning to stop plastic pollution at its source. Their award campaigns are tackling the single-use plastic items most commonly found on our beaches and in our oceans by providing practical, solutions-focused initiatives and advocating reuse over single-use.
Refill is a multi-award-winning campaign to help people live with less plastic. It connects people to places they can eat, drink and shop without the pointless packaging. Refill is a City to Sea campaign. In Wales, the Refill campaign to date has been funded and supported by Welsh Government. Recently, City To Sea was awarded funding from the Landfill Tax Communities Scheme, administered by the WCVA to expand the Refill campaign in the Cardiff region.
Download the free app here to find out where to fill up: https://refill.org.uk/get-the-refill-app/
At Bluestone, sustainability – and protecting and supporting the environment – is taken very seriously. As part of the businesses’ Free Range Future initiative, every area of the resort has been assessed to find ways of reducing single-use plastic wherever possible. Learn more about our Free Range Future, here.
THE PROBLEM WITH PLASTIC
- Every year, we produce more than 300 million tonnes of plastic[1] – up to half of which is single use[2].
- Less than 10% has ever been recycled and the rest is sent to landfill, incineration or worse, is ending ended up in our natural environment and our oceans[3].
- Plastic production is expected to double again over the next 20 years[4] and almost quadruple by 2050[5]
- Packaging from take-away food and drinks is a huge cause of plastic pollution and items like coffee cups and take-away containers are consistently in the top 10 items found on beaches around the world.[6]
- Globally we drink around 1.6 billion cups of takeaway coffee every day[7] and consume a mind blowing one million plastic bottles EVERY MINUTE.[8] These are items that can easily be replaced by reusable alternatives!
- It is estimated that at least 20% of plastic packaging could be replaced by reusable systems[9]
- Converting just 20% of plastic packaging into reuse models is a USD 10 billion business opportunity that benefits customers and represents a crucial element in the quest to eliminate plastic waste and pollution[10].
- Despite this, reusable packaging represents less than 2% of packaging on the market[11]
- In addition, zero waste economies create over 200x as many jobs as economies based on landfills and incinerators[12]
[1] World Economic Forum, Ellen MacArthur Foundation and McKinsey & Company, ‘The New Plastics Economy — Rethinking the future of plastics’ (2016) http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_The_New_Plastics_Economy.pdf
[2] https://www.unenvironment.org/interactive/beat-plastic-pollution/
[3] https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2017/07/plastic-produced-recycling-waste-ocean-trash-debris-environment/
[4] Uncited – European Commission, ‘Plastic Strategy’, January 2018
[5] World Economic Forum, Ellen MacArthur Foundation and McKinsey & Company, ‘The New Plastics Economy — Rethinking the future of plastics’ (2016) http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_The_New_Plastics_Economy.pdf
[6] https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/assets/downloads/Reuse.pdf
[7] https://www.euronews.com/living/2020/02/12/is-your-reusable-coffee-cup-really-making-a-difference
[8] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/28/a-million-a-minute-worlds-plastic-bottle-binge-as-dangerous-as-climate-change
[9] (Ellen MacArthur Foundation, 2017/2019)
[10] https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/assets/downloads/Reuse.pdf
[11] Based on data reported by 250 signatories of the EMF Global Commitment in 2020 who represent 20% of the global market https://www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/assets/downloads/Global-Commitment-2020-Progress-Report.pdf