Over the next five months, Hackney Council will install more fountains in various leisure centres, streets and libraries across the borough. Credit: Hackney Council

More than twenty water fountains will be installed across Hackney to promote the use of reusable water bottles.

The new programme began over the summer, with fountains set up at Dalston CLR James Library, Hackney Marshes Pavilion and Mabley Green.

All three of these areas had previously seen high levels of plastic bottles discarded.

Over the next five months, Hackney Council will install more fountains in various leisure centres, streets and libraries across the borough.

Councillor Jon Burke, who is spearheading the initiative, said: “The UK consumes a staggering 38.5 million single-use plastic bottles every day, which produces vast amounts of waste and global warming emissions.”

Hackney Council has pledged to deliver net zero emissions across all of its functions by 2040.

Councillor Burke called Hackney’s Climate Emergency motion voted in June as “one of the most robust, realistic and science-based commitments delivered by any council.”

Hackney also participates in the UK’s first ultra-low emission streets scheme and the transport systems used by the council itself use primarily non-palm biofuel.

Alongside the promotion of water fountains, Cllr Burke also calls for a carbon tax on plastics, claiming “the plastics and fossil fuel industries are inextricably linked”.