Country: Turkey
School/ organization: Robert College
Delegation leader/ teacher: Erol Åžahin
Students: Aslı Çelik, Tuna Cengiz, İlayda Koca, Ayşegül Şahin
Project title: Public Water Fountains
In Turkey, water from household taps is not fit to be drunk. Drinking water is therefore purchased. Water companies distribute their products by unsustainable means, emitting great amounts of greenhouse gas in this process. For this reason, a changeover in the commercial distribution of water should take place in order to better our industry, transportation, and environment.
Bringing water with pipes directly to households is not a viable solution in this regard because the pipes are not near qualified to carry drinking water. Moreover, the water pipes are chronically fractured due to rapid urbanization and their weak composition.
Building water reservoirs throughout large cities could be a rather plausible option, however. The reservoirs will be built near population centers and contain a sufficient amount at all times to satisfy the demand of water. Water will be brought by water companies to these reservoirs from their water plants.
Our project aims to substantially decrease carbon emission in the transportation sector and decrease plastic usage both in 5 gallon sized (for a typical household) and in daily used water bottles. For the latter, these reservoirs will also be used as public water fountains, providing for people while disincentivizing purchase of plastic water bottles. Thus, tackling the enormous amounts of gasoline consumption due to water distribution and the excessive plastic usage in such commercialized water containers are the two focal points of our project.