North Mayo shop join Refill Revolution

You can now fill up your reusable water bottle free of charge at the Community Hydration Hub in Clarkes XL convenience store in Ballina.

The Hydration Hub, supplied by Refill Ireland and funded by Rethink Ireland, provides access to free filtered water and has been conveniently installed beside the coffee machine in store for customers to use.

Choosing to put a free-to-use refill station in store is a huge and impactful step for a local grocery store to take.

Shiela Clarke, owner of Clarkes XL, Ballina, said: “We were thrilled when the Refill.ie team approached us and gave us this opportunity to give back to the community.”

Never before has action on climate change been more urgent and Refill Ireland are delighted to have Clarkes XL on board helping to tackle one of the biggest contributors to this problem, single-use plastic.

Every day in Ireland 220,000 plastic bottles are generated and 69 per cent of these are not recycled, causing huge problems for our environment.

Choosing to refill your reusable water bottle instead of buying a single use plastic bottle is one simple small daily action that creates an impactful circular sustainable solution to this.

Jennifer Taylor, lead project coordinator, Refill Ireland: “Single use plastic is a disaster for our planet. As plastic bottles are made using fossil-fuels, huge amounts of greenhouse-gases are produced during the manufacturing process, contributing to global warming.

“This alone is bad enough, but because plastic does not fully decompose, unless recycled it continues to cause harm to humans and wildlife as microplastics leak into the soil and our oceans.

“We know that using a reusable bottle is not always convenient and sometimes people have no other choice but to purchase a single-use bottle of water. That’s why we were so happy to install the new Hydration Hub in Clarkes XL as it will give people that choice.

"It’s inspiring to see business owners like Shiela choosing to do something like this for their local community. We hope that it will help more people choose the sustainable option of refilling a reusable bottle when they are out and about.”