Top Up in the Park – Scottish Water and MIW Bring a Bottle Filler to Falkirk Callendar

The Your Water Your Life campaign is one of the biggest social undertakings by Scottish Water in recent years. Its purpose is two-fold: 1) to encourage the people of Scotland to drink more water and adopt a healthier lifestyle. 2) to reduce the amount of single-use plastic used and abandoned throughout Scotland. A major part of the campaign has been the installation of ‘Top Up Taps’ – supplied by MIW Water Cooler Experts – in strategic locations, covering the length and breadth of the country. The latest location is Falkirk Callendar. And it’s the first park to benefit from the campaign.

Falkirk Callendar’s Top Up Tap

There were three main priorities when it came to selecting suitable bottle fillers for the Your Water Your Life project. Firstly, the units must be completely safe for public use and comply with all Government standards, as well as the stringent guidelines provided by Scottish Water. Secondly, they must be easy to use to encourage as much usage as possible. Finally, the water dispensers must be able to cope with the Scottish climate and the very cold, wet conditions that the winter can bring. Taking all of this into consideration, MIW recommended the Halsey Taylor 4400BF – Endura II Tubular Outdoor Bottle Filling Station.

WRAS-approved, the Endura II has been tested inside and out and proven fully compliant with all water authority and Government safety guidelines. The hands-free operation means that it couldn’t be easier to use – there are no complicated instructions to follow, you simply hold your bottle under the faucet and wait for the water to come. And the solid, stainless steel, powder-coated exterior is impervious to the hardest of winters. The basic unit is capable of withstanding temperatures as low as -30. And in extremely exposed areas, the MIW team were able to customise the units with additional protection to ensure that they are able to work all year. The solid build of the bottle fillers, combined with the absence of external moving parts, also brings the benefit of vandal resistance.

As with all Scottish Water’s Top Up Taps, MIW customised the bottle filler prior to installation. As well as using RAL codes to powder coat the unit in the perfect Scottish Water blue, we hand-finished it with the project’s logo and messaging, so it really looks the part.

Where can you find Falkirk’s new bottle filler?

Installed at the end of October 2019, the Falkirk Callendar bottle filler is situated on the mound near Callendar House, near one of the park’s best-known landmarks, the Norway Maple. Popular with walkers, joggers, dog walkers and families, this site was chosen to encourage maximum use of the Top Up Tap. And it’s already been welcomed by the community.

Paul Finnie, Sport and Recreation Manager at Falkirk Community Trust said: “We are delighted Scottish Water has chosen Callendar Park as a location for their Top Up Tap which we know our park users will get a real benefit from. We are all trying to reduce the impact of single use plastics and this innovation will not only improve the facilities on offer for customers but also help protect our environment.”

The Falkirk Callendar bottle filler is the 16^th customised unit that MIW has supplied for the Scottish Water Your Water Your Life campaign. And it is by no means the last in the programme. With plans to install a total of 35 bottle fillers around Scotland, this is a project that will keep rolling well into next year. And has the potential to make a massive contribution to the movement to remove single-use plastics from our environment.