250,000 downloads of the app aimed to tackle plastic pollution.

Increasing our app downloads by a whopping 175% since January.

City to Sea, the organisation behind the award-winning Refill campaign, are this week celebrating their Refill app being downloaded by more than 250,000 people. The free, location-based app connects people to places they can Refill their water-bottle for free. This stops people buying single-use plastic bottles and prevents millions of plastic bottles from entering our waste stream.

The Refill app is tapping into a growing concern about single-use plastic and the impact it has on our shared environment. App downloads have increased by 175% since the start of the year and the number of active users has increased by 422%. The app was recently trending at number 2 for travel apps on the android store.

The Refill campaign works by connecting people who are looking for water, with thousands of local business, transport hubs and public spaces where they can refill for free. Cafes, bars, restaurants, banks, galleries, museums and other businesses simply sign up to the app and put a sticker in their window – alerting passers-by that they’re welcome to come on in and fill up their bottle. There are now more than 23,000 Refill stations listed on the app including organisations such as Starbucks, Pret, McDonald’s and Costa Coffee along with thousands of independent businesses.

City to Sea estimate Refill will have saved over 100 million single-use bottles from entering our waste stream by the end of 2019.

Lanie Sibley, Refill app, Digital Product Manager at City to Sea responded to the news saying, “It’s incredible to see how much the app has grown in the last 8 months. What started out as a local Bristol campaign has now grown to become an internationally used app for people looking to refill their water bottle over buying a plastic bottle. We continuously look for ways to make small changes to the app for a more seamless experience. We recently redesigned the app for a cleaner look and feel based on feedback from our users and we have big plans for development over the next couple of months.”

 The Refill app was named in the 10 best sustainable apps in Vogue [1], as one of the six apps to help you shop, eat and drink more sustainably in the Daily Telegraph [2] and it was awarded GOLD at the Global Good Awards [3]. 

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Notes to editor:

[1] https://www.vogue.co.uk/gallery/the-10-best-sustainability-apps

[2] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/food-and-drink/features/six-apps-help-shop-eat-drink-sustainably/

[3] https://globalgoodawards.co.uk/2018-global-good-award-winners/

[4] About the Refill app:  The Refill app is a free tap water initiative designed to reduce plastic pollution, from water bottles, by making refilling easy, attractive and rewarding! Our aims are to have free Refill Stations on every high street in every city and to make carrying a refillable bottle a social norm. After the successful trial in Bristol, with over 200 Refill Stations signing up across the city in 2015, Refill has grown to scale sustainably across the UK with 25,000 stations and counting.  

 What’s unique about the growth of Refill is that it’s a community led campaign. In the first year (Oct 2016 – Oct 2017) we had around 6,000 app users. By January 2018 we’d reached 16,697, with 1,600 Refill Stations active on the app, plus the driving force of 40 community-based Refill Schemes spreading the word, helping to reduce unintentional blindness and making Refill present in local towns and cities. Now we have over 287 Community schemes and over 250,000 app downloads.

[5] For further comment or to arrange interviews please contact City to Sea’s Campaigns Manager, Steve Hynd on[email protected] or ring on 07903569531.

[6] For a range of high resolution photos of people taking part in the Refill campaign as well as using the app please seehttps://citytoseacic.sharepoint.com/:f:/s/CitytoSeaOfficeFiles/EnZOOAOcLZtNnpHXmCUL1UsBZzLwrJQ3B2dRBV7-56Ag_w?e=24BwrI – all photos are copyright free

[7] For a high resolution photo of Lanie Sibley, City to Sea’s Digital Product Manager please see  https://citytoseacic.sharepoint.com/:i:/s/CitytoSeaOfficeFiles/EY4GEPoIRhROmSVKdjwzB6wB1mRqGpogquhsN6VbMQDNtg?e=jcuEgV