Cuba St bucket fountain filled with plastic bottles for 'turn the tide on plastic' day

Thursday, 29 November 2018

Kiwi Bottle Drive campaigner Holly Dove at Cuba Street's bucket fountain filled with plastic bottles for turn the tide on plastic day.

It's a sight to cringe at - the Cuba St bucket fountain filled with plastic bottles.

The fountain was filled with bottles on Thursday to mark 'turn the tide on plastic day', and to demonstrate how a bottle deposit scheme could reduce plastic waste.

Kiwi Bottle Drive campaigner Holly Dove said bottle deposits could be the next plastic bag ban, saving even more plastic from the environment and landfill than the bag ban.

At Cuba St people could remove the bottles from the fountain and give them to Kiwi Bottle Drive campaigners for a small refund - just like a real deposit scheme.

'We had a lot more people coming up than I expected,' Kiwi Bottle Drive campaigner Holly Dove said.

People were able to pull the bottles out of the fountain, and return them to the Bottle Drive for a free refund.

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The bottles were slowly collected and gone and within an hour the fountain was back to normal.

Dove said the highlight was students from Kelburn Normal School, who heard about the event and brought their own bottles.

They were refunded a small amount for each bottle, Dove said.

'I saw them later down the street eating lollies, so I'm pretty sure that's where they spent their funds.'

The enthusiastic students were chanting 'no more plastic, no more plastic', Dove said. 'They were doing a bit of free promo for us.'

Bottle deposits could be the next plastic bag ban, saving more plastic from the environment and landfill than the bag ban, she said.

'The Government is really open to looking in to this more. What we really need right now is for Kiwis to get really vocal about this.'

On December 4 the Kiwi Bottle Drive will present a petition at Parliament, signed by nearly 13,000 people.

'Turn the tide on plastic day' is a nationwide day of action against the increasing amount of ocean plastics.

It was officially on Tuesday, but the bucket fountain event was postponed until Thursday because of high winds which could have sent bottles flying.