Refill (no more plastic bottles of water)

The Refill app is made by City to Sea, and lists a number of places where you can get a drink of water, and refill a bottle that you've brought with you. This saves plastic, as it means you have no need to buy a plastic bottle of water any more. The city council and the BID are going to support this, and there a few volunteers to help contact businesses about it, the main thing we're looking for at the moment is a little funding to help get a staff member for Cambridge Sustainable Food get working on it and co-ordinating everyone. Potential sources are the city council, Cambridge Water, crowd funding, but let us know if you have any other ideas! (likely to be about 20k including costs of the national City to Sea organisation)

A couple of documents about how the scheme works and what we need to provide to get a license.

Great idea can't wait to get involved

Doodle poll - to find a date for first team meeting https://doodle.com/poll/295zeqr862f7kefa

Hey everyone, the 1st July has come back as the best date for the Refill team meeting, let's convene at the Six Bells pub at 11 Covent Garden, just off Mill Road. (7pm start - try the back room if we're not at the front)

Thanks Oscar, looking forward to it!

Hi everyone, here are minutes from the meeting last night. Sorry these are a little late!

Present: Oscar (city council/transition), Kim, Gemma (CSF), Seigo, Kaye, Nicky (city council)
Apologies: Dave (Arjuna)

• We got to know each other a little bit, and talked about the history of the scheme.
• We were also talking about the refillable bottles provided through Refill, and wondering if they were too expensive for people to buy?
• The opportunity with the Business Improvement District does seem really good. If they're proactively asking to do it, we shouldn't miss the opportunity.
• General agreement with the approach of starting in BID, then trying to expand to the rest of Market Ward, then trying to expand to other city wards (using the electoral wards is an easy way to split it up geographically, and also corresponds neatly with councillors who can help). Note: we can still ask businesses outside of BID! That's just where we'll focus effort.
• General agreement with the approach of trying to get businesses onboard during July, and then do some sort of launch event at the end of July, even if it's only online.
• General agreement with setting up a Facebook page for marketing reach.
• There was a mixed response to the approach of applying for funding to relevant organisations, mainly based on a feeling that a coordinator role could be something we could manage without. Nobody was completely opposed to this, it was more a fear of wasting effort on sending application forms, instead of doing things that directly contributed to reducing plastic waste.

We didn't agree to divide any roles within the organisation at this stage, we just agreed on a few follow up actions.
- Meet again within a month to build on this meeting (Oscar to schedule)
- Contact Business Improvement District to ask if they can send an email around to businesses letting them know that the scheme is about to launch (Oscar)
- Write a pitch for funding to Cambridge Water and Anglia Water (Kaye is working on it, we should offer feedback and agree to send it)
- Let other Labour councillors know about the scheme and see which areas they might be willing to volunteer on (Nicky)
- Investigate the impact of Refill in other cities, to satisfy anyone who asks us if it's genuinely removing plastic waste (Seigo)
- Remind everyone how to get on the Loomio so that everyone can access it (Oscar)

If there are any questions, ask here! Someone will probably know the answer.

Hi Oscar and co
thanks for posting all this and apologies once again for missing the first meeting. As you know Arjuna Wholefoods would love to be involved in setting up a refill point outside our shop and possibly co-sponsoring it. Please let me know what i can do and the date of the next meeting.

cheers Dave - Arjuna

Hi Dave I think we'll have our next meeting as part of an action day - see the other post further down the page. Probably a bit of chatting and organising, combined with a bit of visiting businesses and engaging with them about the app.

Are Arjuna looking for help in getting the refill point set up or is it all in hand already? Are you able to refill bottles currently for customers in the kitchen? From the county council's point of view, I imagine they would be unhappy about proposals that would reduce space on the pavement there, whatever the environmental benefits. I might come in and speak to you to find out more.

Hi Oscar
Thanks for getting back to me.

No we haven’t spoken to anyone about this yet and yeah i know what you mean
about the council though technically we own the space in front
of our building so maybe we could put it somewhere v close to the building?
Needs research.

Just wanna make this happen Smile

Cheers
Dave

Arjuna
Wholefoods
Shop: 01223 364 845