In Slovenia, we are fortunate that tap water (i.e. water from the public water supply) is drinkable. This water is mostly of excellent quality and suitable for use without special treatment.
This is why Slovenians (unlike people in many countries in other parts of the world) have always drunk tap water. As a result, there has been no need to buy water in bottles (or other packaging) in Slovenia, or even a demand for packaged water at all. The latter had to be artificially created.
This was done through various established sales techniques. Among these, aggressive marketing is particularly noteworthy. In addition, an important aspect of the extraordinary success of selling bottled water is the fact that tap water is often unavailable in public places.
- How many times have you bought bottled water at a service station because tap water was simply not available?
- Where is it possible to fill up/drink tap water in large shopping centres?
- Are all the municipalities, hospitals and other public places you go to equipped with water dispensers?
For these reasons, buying bottled water in bulk has become a practice, even in situations where it is not really necessary and many Slovenians would prefer to drink tap water. Bottled water is (mostly) of inferior quality and, on the other hand, it is the cause of several types of pollution (single-use bottles; energy-irrational water transport; etc.). All these are negative externalities caused by the desire for private gain of the producers of packaged water, and there is no market initiative to enable or encourage drinking tap water. This is therefore an area that the State must regulate appropriately for the public good.
I therefore propose that it be made compulsory to install tap water dispensers in as many publicly accessible places as possible (state, municipal, private), in particular:
- at least one water dispenser in a prominent position at every petrol station
- each shopping centre a certain number of water dispensers per unit area in the most exposed locations
- at least one water dispenser in each public institution (hospitals, colleges, schools, kindergartens, social work centres, employment services, ZZZS offices, ZPIZ offices, administrative units, municipalities, etc.).
- every museum, every gallery
- etc.
Water dispensers should allow both the dispensing of water in their own containers and direct drinking (for cases where containers are not available). All of the above can be properly regulated in such a way that implementation does not lead to unviable situations (e.g. exemptions for smaller public places; exemptions if the cost of installation would be prohibitive, etc.). Installation costs would be borne by the owners of the public places; as regards private individuals, this is justified because they benefit from people being in their public place. The cost of the water itself is negligible. Although state institutions in particular have recently been installing water meters, this is generally not enough.