On average, a single person will drink 10 bottles of water over a festival weekend and at a festival such as WOMAD which attracts 30,000 people, this means around 300,000 water bottles are used, posing an environmental risk and a costly recycling exercise for organisers.
FreeFill has been developed to tackle this problem and drastically reduce the amount of plastic waste through a scheme that offers festival goers access to unlimited filtered, clean and chilled water by purchasing just one re-useable bottle at a festival and refilling rather than re-buying. This enables a cost-efficient option for festival goers, who can also actively play a part in reducing the waste produced.
As 100% of the profits from the scheme fund FRANK Water's clean water filtration projects in developing countries, festival organisers and visitors can directly contribute to giving access to safe water for thousands who lack this basic human right.
Lulu Cowley from WOMAD comments, "We are delighted to have FRANK Water on board again this year, our customers embraced the concept last year. This whole new initiative makes sense to everyone and in the process we can help provide clean drinking water to many thousands of people in India."
Lamorna Trahair from FRANK Water says, "We have carefully developed and refined the FreeFill scheme since WOMAD in 2010 and we are thankful that the team have invited us back again this year. We are hoping to raise enough funds from this year's festival, together with what was raised last year, to be able to fund a complete WOMAD water project in India that will provide 10,000 people with water."
(Jim Evans)