We will all go with the flow when they bring back drinking fountains
There’s been a call to reinstate more drinking fountains nationwide, and I for one am delighted. Imagine the Gardens at Versailles recreated in public spaces from Barnsley to Bodmin. (Although, since the erection of Anish Kapoor’s infamous “queen’s vagina” sculpture in the palace grounds, it’s arguably more of a pubic space, but let’s not quibble over semantics…)
The aim is to combat the scourge of the 16 million plastic water bottles discarded every day. Not me, though; the only time I ever voluntarily bin a bottle is when I’m in Departures, and it’s like parting ways with a trusted old friend.
As a matter of course, I reuse every bottle until it’s heroically battered, the label has come off and the general vibe is more legionnaires’ disease than refreshing hydration.
But there is a certain smug satisfaction in quietly undermining the UK’S
£2 billion bottled water market each time I refill it from the tap.
It’s hard to describe my outrage when I took one of those sports bottles over to the sink this very week – and discovered that the plastic cap had been fixed on so tightly it was impossible to remove.
I’ve noticed some meanspirited manufacturers employ the same trick with those exorbitantly expensive travel-sized beauty products, too.
Perhaps, then, the answer really is drinking fountains, if only because it will stem the tide of modern squeamishness about germs and preciousness about provenance.
I can think of at least three friends who would rather see their children lie gasping in the dust than permit them to drink from a (gasp!) communal water source.
All the more reason to stigmatise the use of plastic bottles – it worked with plastic bags – and commission leading artists to design some exuberant municipal fountains.
But please, nothing as challenging as the Manneken Pis in Brussels. There are some indignities the British will not swallow, no matter how thirsty we are.