Leeds Pride

Yorkshire Water is taking their portable ‘water bar’ to Leeds Pride 2019 to support their anti-plastics scheme ‘Yorkshire on Tap’.

In a movement against single-use plastics the company is encouraging people to bring their own reusable bottle to fill up for free at the water bar which was first introduced in 2017.

The Yorkshire on Tap scheme discourages the circulation of plastic bottles and promotes a more water sustainable lifestyle.

At this year’s Leeds Pride, a whopping 3,000 litres of free tap water will be consumed by visitors who will be pulling their own pint of water. This will prevent 9,090 330ml-sized plastic bottles from entering circulation and ending up in the waste stream.

Aimee Linfoot, Head of Brand at Yorkshire Water, said: “We are so excited to be supporting Leeds Pride this year and expect thousands of people to bring their own bottle and pull their own pint of Yorkshire water, the best water in the country! We also want to talk to stand visitors about how important it is to use water wisely in the home as part of a more water sustainable lifestyle and they’ll have the chance to sign up for a free water saving pack too.”

Yorkshire Water is proud to be supporting ‘Refill’ with the Yorkshire on Tap scheme. Refill is a national campaign which enables customers to fill up their water bottles for free at participating retailers, thousands of retailers in Yorkshire are already part of the Refill scheme.

A City to Sea survey found that 85% of the public are concerned with the amount of plastic pollution, Yorkshire on Tap and Refill are schemes in place to tackle this plastic pollution. Yorkshire Water installed three drinking fountains in Hull city centre in 2017 which has so far helped to remove the equivalent of 100,000 plastic bottles from circulation.

The company will be promoting free water saving packs at the event to encourage people to use water more wisely at home. Visitors can get their hands on helpful tips about what they can do to actively lower their water usage and those who sign up for a free pack can receive items for the home which will save on water, money and energy.

Backed up by a recent YouGov survey, Yorkshire Water believe sustainable water consumption is an environmental concern that is currently being overlooked by the public. Instead, the survey revealed that other environmental issues ranked much higher.

The survey asked 1,000 people to judge what they thought were the most pressing environmental and ecological challenges facing the planet.

Plastic pollution came out on top with a staggering 82% of the public believing that was the number one environmental concern, this was closely followed by climate change (including deforestation) at 74%. Yet only 28% of those surveyed recognised there was an issue of water sustainability, this has driven Yorkshire Water to call for greater exposure of the issue to promote using water more wisely.

The full results of the survey positioned plastic pollution as the number one environmental concern (82%), followed by climate change including deforestation (74%), vehicle carbon emissions (51%), food waste (30%), water sustainability (28%) and clothing waste (9%).