It seems kind of weird to make a blog post about this. The fact that Earth’s General Store offers people free water is noteworthy?

Water is fundamental to life. It is a human right to have access to potable/drinking water.

Ever since we opened our store in 1991, I have made it a point of offering water to people that either looked like they needed it or they asked for water. Of course, we would provide water to people. I would not think anything else.

We are now making it more official and prominent. We have put stickers on our doors to promote that people can refill their water bottles at our store (ask a staff person).

We have put the Berkey water filter out on the floor so that people can refill their own bottles.

When we had the downtown store we had our water filter front and centre so that people could refill their water bottles. During the City Market on Saturdays, it became quite a popular spot for people to pop into and refill their water bottles.

We have registered our store on the Blue W website as a location to refill your water bottle.

The other day, I saw a news article that said that bottled water is poised to become the most popularly sold beverage in the USA – yes even surpassing soda pops. Think of all those wasted plastic bottles going to a landfill somewhere. It is a waste of resources. Even if a higher percentage of them are recycled it is still a hit to the environment. Tap water, filtered water or refilling from a bulk station into a REUSABLE bottle/container has the lowest footprint.

Come and refill your reusable bottle with free water at our store when you are out and about and reduce your plastic footprint.

I was recently in Portland, Oregon and in their downtown core, they have many water drinking fountains bubbling with water. I believe in access to water but not wasting water. I Tweeted about this waste while I was there.

This ‘service’ that we, as fellow human beings, the offer has a few rules though. Yes, you can have free water (filtered or tap) but a person is limited to a 1L refill and you have to bring in their own container.

You do not need to be a customer of the store.

PS – we DO NOT sell bottled water (we do offer the 18.9L jugs of water for use at homes and businesses).

PSS – our washroom is is for use by our customers and anyone else that wishes to use it. This has always been the case at our store. Free Water and access to a washroom. BONUS!

On a side note. It is shameful that too many First Nation settlements do not have access to clean potable water for their communities. Our Federal Government needs to address this shortcoming because it smacks of racism.

#RefillDontLandfill #Refill #RefillDontRecycle #ReuseDontLandfill #ReuseDontRecycle #Reuse