​What will it take to kick Singapore's growing multimillion-dollar addiction to bottled water?

Channel NewsAsia online, 19 May

The water flowing from Singapore's taps is perfectly safe to drink, but recent research shows that many people still prefer to quench their thirst with bottled water. The main reason why many people do not just drink water straight form the tap is convenience, said Shane Snyder, Executive Director of NEWRI at NTU. One key solution in addressing this issue, is to make public water fountains more accessible, which would help address the “ick factor” of people having to refill their bottles in public toilets, said Prof Snyder. As their final year project, a quartet of final-year NTU communications students started a campaign aimed at encouraging people to eschew bottled water in favour of tap water. “We saw more people using reusable metal straws, and plastic bags aren’t given out in our school anymore,” said Erny Kartolo, one of the four students. “But we realised that there wasn’t enough attention given to plastic bottle waste, when in actual fact, this accounts for a lot of Singapore’s plastic waste." Their “Drink Wise, Drink Tap” campaign ran from January to March, with Senior Minister of State for the Environment and Water Resources Amy Khor praising it as “simple, but brilliant”.