Free water refills to reduce plastic waste

Our IPW activities demonstrated that microplastics are transport media of POPs and endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) in marine environments and their exposure source to marine organisms.  Our message to the society is that reduction of single-use plastics is one of the most efficient solutions for the problem.  Actions to reduce single-use plastics have started in various sectors in the society.  These have been introduced by a newspaper (The Japan News by The Yomiuri Shinmbun).  Our university (Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology) also started action to reduce plastics and to promote researches for sustainable society free from petroleum-based plastics (TUAT 5R Plastic-free Initiative : Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Renewable, and Research) in August 2019.  TUAT installed 18 free water dispensers in our campus to reduce PET bottle consumption.