Through a water refill map, the My Hong Te initiative integrates existing drinking water resources and provides people in need of drinking water with an alternative to buying bottled water.
According to statistics from the Ministry of Environment, approximately 1 billion bottles of bottled water are produced in Taiwan every year. This process depletes a significant amount of resources, emits greenhouse gases, and contributes to environmental problems when the bottles are thrown away. This challenge is not exclusive to Taiwan; it is a dilemma that the world as a whole is grappling with.
We need to drink water, not purchase plastic bottles
CircuPlus launched the “Drinking Water and Zero Waste” initiative in 2020 to point out that “we want to drink water, not purchase plastic bottles.” The team developed the water refill map—”My Hong Te App”—which integrates existing drinking water resources in society through digital technology, sharing open source information and allowing people who are out and about to quickly and conveniently find nearby My Hong Te stations to refill their water reusable bottles. The integration of digital technology and social resources offers an alternative to purchasing bottled water for those in need of drinking water, making it more convenient for everyone to achieve the goals of drinking more water, caring for the environment, and reducing plastic bottles from the source in their everyday lives.
Benefits
- There are My Hong Te (water) service points in every county and city across Taiwan, including the outlying islands, connecting 13,000 free My Hong Te (water) service points 1, including at government units, enterprises, and private stores.
- More than 260,000 people have downloaded the app, preventing the use of 1.77 million bottles of water and reducing 271 metric tons of carbon.