Arguably London’s most famous food market, Borough Market, is ditching the single use plastic bottle over the next six months. And it doesn’t want to stop there.
Alice Pritchard
Wed 23 Aug 2017
Borough market close to London Bridge has just installed three new water fountains around the market, and eco-friendly refillable bottles will be available to buy.
Photography | Lucy Young
Darren Henaghan, Managing Director of Borough Market said, “By using the new Borough Fountains our visitors will be able to refill and refresh without having to buy a plastic bottle each time. We are proud to take this significant step forward as part of our ongoing commitment to making Borough Market Britain’s greenest place to shop and hope that others will follow suit.”
Borough Market is pretty zero waste already. None of its food ends up in landfill. It has partnered with Plan Z Heroes who take surplus produce to local charities and what isn’t edible goes to anaerobic digestion plant which breaks it down into fertiliser. Even the coffee grounds are recycled to make fuel logs by a new clean technology company who make biofuels.
All other packaging used by the market’s 114 traders over its 51,272 sq ft site aims to be bio-degradable and compostable, helping Borough Market achieve zero waste to landfill.
Why is getting rid of plastic bottles important?
Well...38.5 million plastic bottles are bought in the UK every day, but only just over half are recycled. The other 16m are put into landfill, burnt or leak into the environment and oceans each day.
Plastic bottles can take up to 450 years to break down once they reach the sea. It's said if we carry on as we are, there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean in just over 30 years time.
Discover the brands turning plastic bottles info fashion.
