Drought of drinking fountains
The humble drinking fountain could take on obesity, warmer temperatures from climate change and ‘‘vast mountains’’ of plastic waste but they are vanishing in New Zealand’s public spaces, a study has found.
The study by University of Otago, Wellington, public health researchers, as published in the New Zealand Medical Journal, found only 20 per cent of playgrounds surveyed had a functioning water fountain.
Study authors Nick Wilson and George Thomson randomly selected 54 playgrounds from 17 local government areas in the lower North Island and found just 11 had working fountains within 100 metres of the playground equipment.
Eight local government areas had no water fountains in any of the sampled playgrounds.
An earlier study by Wilson and Thomson of playgrounds in Wellington found only 6 per cent had a functioning water fountain.
‘‘Having people drinking more water instead of sugary drinks is good for the health system and the costs it has to bear – so it just seems like councils and the central government are way behind on this issue,’’ Wilson said.
Over one third of children (2 to 14 years old) were obese or overweight according to the most recent New Zealand Health Survey.
While there was no scientific evidence water fountains could reduce obesity, anecdotally people used fountains when they were available and noticed if they were not, he said.
‘‘It sort of makes sense that having more fountains will increase water consumption.’’
The authors called on the government to impose minimum mandatory requirements for drinking fountains and extend access to malls, beaches and public parks.
New Zealand schools are required to provide one water fountain for every 60 students but there was no similar requirement for councils.
‘‘If central government wants to use its powers to improve health nationwide it should have minimum levels and condition.’’
Maintenance, including ensuring drinking fountains appeared clean, was important to increase public confidence in the supply of safe drinking water, particularly in light of the recent contamination crisis in Havelock North.
Some fountains in the study had grass growing out of them or green ‘‘sludgy’’ build up around the nozzle.
Though technically usable and probably safe, their appearance was a turn-off.
Publicly available drinking water, though free, had to compete with a huge increase of sugary drinks for sale.
‘‘The scale of production and marketing has got more sophisticated so sometimes you can buy bottles of coke at extremely low prices...and then the tax payer is paying to extract the rotten teeth from children and we have an obesity epidemic.’’