The Consumer Council for Wales is encouraging cafes, bars and
restaurants throughout England & Wales to offer their customers
the choice of tap water as a matter of course, and is calling on
the public to start asking food & drink outlets for the water
they want.
The Council says that tap water is safe, stringently tested and
is at record quality levels that puts it amongst the best in the
world.
It is also already available within all food & drink outlets
to allow the safe preparation of food, drinks and for washing up,
so there is no barrier to access, other than serving it to
customers and making it a pleasant experience.
With tap water costing around one tenth of a penny for a litre,
it means that consumers can enjoy a whole year of the generally
accepted 2 litres a day, for the cost of four second class
stamps.
Dame Yve Buckland, National Chair of the Consumer Council for
Water, said: "Most cafes, bars and restaurants already strive to
ensure that their guests have the best possible experience every
time - so there should be no problem in them providing fresh tap
water to their customers if that is what's desired.
"The experience of asking for tap water should be no different
to asking for sugar, salt or pepper. We can't insist that food and
drink outlets provide tap water for free, but at a cost of one
pence for around fifty glasses, having it available and well
presented shouldn't be too much to ask.
"The bottled water industry spends millions investing in their
brands and that's what people are paying for when they pick up a
bottle of water. There is no health advantage in drinking bottled
water instead of water from the tap".
The cost of tap water averages under 12% of a pence per litre,
so a person can drink the recommended 2 litres of water per day
from the tap and over a year it would only cost 85p. Drinking the
recommended 2 litres of bottled water per day (at an average of 69p
per litre) would, over a year, cost £503.70.
According to the Earth Policy Institute, nearly a quarter of all
bottled water crosses national borders to reach consumers.
Worldwide, some 2.7 million tonnes of plastic are used to bottle
water each year and buried water bottles can take up to 1,000 years
to biodegrade. As much as 40% of bottled water begins as tap water
- often the only difference is added minerals that have no marked
health benefit.
FURTHER INFORMATION
For further information please visit the Consumer Council for
Wales website at: www.ccwater.org.uk contact
Tel: 0845 039 2837 Email: enquiries@ccwater.org.uk