Under a draft law Germany’s government is sending to Parliament, cities and towns will be mandated to add public drinking water taps in an effort to not only provide more relief from increasingly hot summers but also to help the environment by cutting down on the billions of plastic water bottles that fill the gap.
The effort is meant to nearly double the number of taps in a country which, nationwide, has only 1,300. By contrast, Paris alone has over 1200 and Madrid over 1600 places where a hot and thirsty traveler can take a drink or fill a bottle. In Paris some of the fountains even dispense carbonated water. Berlin, meanwhile, has only 50.
“Access to drinking water must be as easy as possible for everyone in Germany,” Environment Minister Steffi Lemke said. The law mandates that public access fountains will be considered a regular required part of public water supply, which will also help Germany comply with the 2020 EU Water Directive that raised sanitary standards and called for improved access.
