EARTH ISLAND JOURNAL • SPRING 2020 151000 FOUNTAINS:
Ditch the
Bottle
It’s Saturday afternoon, and my wife
and I are out on an urban walk in San
Francisco. Our destination: The Palace
of Fine Arts — a scenic Roman-style
monument that attracts locals and
tourists alike year-round. We’ve been
walking for about 15 minutes when
we start to get thirsty. I shake my head
when I realize we both forgot to carry
our water bottles. “Not to worry,” I say,
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on the way.”
We don’t pass one on the way.
When we arrive, it’s a busy day at the
Palace — people are strolling around
the lake, taking pictures of the awe-
inspiring structure, or reading books on
park benches. We’ve been walking for
almost 45 minutes now, and we’re quite
parched. Unfortunately, we still don’t
spot a water fountain (On a later trip, I
did discover one fountain tucked away
at the far end of the park.)
As we left the Palace, I thought to
myself, ?PaQ[Q\[WPIZL\WÅVLILZQVSQVO
fountain in the city?
The answer is actually pretty simple.
Since the emergence of single-use
plastic water bottles, the prevalence of
water fountains has been declining in
San Francisco and in most cities across
the country. In particular, well-funded
marketing campaigns by the beverage
industry in the past few decades scared
the public into believing bottled water
is safer than municipal water. The tactic
may be sinister, but it worked. Today,
77 percent of the public is concerned
about the safety of the water coming
out of their taps, and since 2016,
bottled water has been the best-selling
beverage in the United States. Salescontinue to grow every year, and sadly,
plastic bottles are now the third most
common item found in marine debris.
If we’re serious about stopping, and
reversing the plastic pollution trend any
time soon, we need a comprehensive
approach that involves multiple
solutions. One of those is tackling
plastic water bottles.
The most important step in that
regard is to help people regain trust in
their public drinking water. That is a
tall order, especially given serious water
contamination crises — including lead
contamination in Michigan, and PFAS
contamination across the country —
that have rightly worried residents.
Federal, state, and city governments
must invest in water infrastructure in
every corner of our country and ensure
it meets the highest safety standards
and rebuilds public trust. Anything
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But fear is not the only reason
people buy bottled water. Even in San
Francisco, a city that boasts some of
the safest and best-tasting water in the
country, people often opt for bottled
options — an estimated 285 million
single-use plastic water bottles were sold
in the city in 2017. That’s an average
of about 220 bottles per person.
Why is that? Research shows that
those who buy plastic water bottles
don’t really want the plastic, but they
do want the convenience. People want
to be able to have a drink of water
when they get thirsty. Not everyonehas bought into reusable bottles, and
even those who have sometimes forget
to bring them. (Guilty!) Our solution
at 1000 Fountains takes care of both
problems. If we build enough drinking
fountains, no one will ever need to buy
a bottle of water again. Simply put,
we intend to make public drinking
fountains the most convenient choice
for anyone who gets thirsty in the city.
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fountains on sidewalks and in parks
in every San Francisco neighborhood
within the next ten years. The fountains
will also help save money — people
spent a total of almost $500 million on
bottled water in 2017 in San Francisco
alone. And these fountains will be built
to accommodate everyone, including
people in wheelchairs, children, and
even people with a thirsty pet.
Getting this done will not be easy.
Drinking fountains are expensive
to install and maintain. We need to
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is strong demand for these fountains,
and convince them to fund this project.
That’s where we need your help. If
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1000fountains.org/pledge to sign our
pledge, follow us on social media, and
share this article with your networks.— ALEXIS VAN GELDERLearn more about this Earth Island project
at 1000fountains.org
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