Those of you who have been on a Watermill creative holiday will know that during their stay we lend our guests rather elegant insulated water bottles,. The water itself comes from a clever little dispenser in the communal kitchen, which provides filtered water either chilled or at ambient temperature, fizzy or flat.
The reason is that we are cutting down on the use of plastic, by not buying our drinking water in plastic bottles. And there is a bigger reason for the special bottles we lend our guests. Even though we have banished plastic water bottles, we still use plastics at the mill, particularly in wrappings and boxes to keep our food clean and fresh. A rough estimate of the amount of plastic used during our creative-week season is about 1.8 kgs per guest, a total of some 450kgs. That is the equivalent of some 40,000 half-litre plastic bottles.
Working with the Ocean Bottle charity, we have done a deal both to buy their stylish insulated bottles and to finance a scheme to offset all our plastic consumption each year. Ocean Bottle undertakes to prevent, on our behalf, 450kgs of plastic entering the oceans, by paying people to remove it from the most polluted rivers around the world. In this way, our creative-course guests will know that they are plastic neutral during their stay with us.
The Watermill’s official Ocean Dashboard, at the top, shows that the equivalent of 39,578 plastic bottles will be taken out before the end of the year. So, many thanks (39,578, to be precise) to our guests this year for their contribution. We are going to do it again in 2024, all part of our determination to make the Watermill Cool and Green.
Plastic waste is the scourge of the oceans and their wildlife, and Ocean Bottle works worldwide to bring a ‘people-powered solution to the ocean plastic crisis.’ It raises money to pay people to collect plastic in coastal communities where the pollution is worst.
The company guarantees this collection through regulated waste-management tracking and verification procedures. The plastic is recycled, upcycled or reprocessed, and this is also monitored. Moreover, Ocean Bottle works with local collectors, who exchange plastic for money, helping them to be more secure financially and to gain access to social resources such as healthcare and education.
Since launching in 2019 Ocean Bottle has prevented more than seven million kgs of ocean-bound plastic from reaching our seas. That’s equivalent to 636 million plastic bottles.
Currently eight million metric tonnes (8,000 million kgs) of plastic wind up in the oceans every year. Our contribution may be a drop in the ocean (groan), but it’s important, nonetheless.