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*As councils throughout the UK react to calls from DEFRA to ban bottled water, Aylesbury Vale District Council has emerged as one of the leading lights in the campaign to lessen the environmental impact of providing palatable water at council meetings. *

When the BBC’s Panorama team requested the spending figures for bottled water from November 2006 to October 2007, Aylesbury Vale District Council was able to state that it had spent a minimal amount.

The council had made the switch to mains-fed water machines eight years previously under the guidance of a Tana Water employee who had outlined the benefits to the environment and the council’s budget from using machines that filter tap water at the point of use.

In October 2007, the Panorama team contacted every council in England and Wales to find out how much they had spent on bottled water, using the powers of the Freedom of Information Act. Hampshire County Council topped the list of bottled water expenditure with a whopping £141,215 spent on bottled water in the 12 months to October 2007.

Sunderland county council’s bill topped £100,000, resulting in the council replacing its bottle-fed water coolers with 24 mains-fed machines. The BBC’s report found that the UK councils’ total bill came to more than £5 million.

“We like to think that we're spending our tax payers’ money as wisely as possible, as well as looking after our environment,” said Marion Nash, Buildings Manager, Aylesbury Vale District Council. “However, we do accept that, in this area, there's a high iron content in the water, and some members of staff dislike the taste of tap water. Therefore, we meet their needs by using Tana Water’s mains-fed machines, which filter out impurities such as iron, lead, limescale and chlorine to make the tap water taste better.”

About Tana Water Tana Water UK Ltd is a wholly owned subsidiary of Tana Industries, one of the world’s leading developers and producers of mains-fed water dispensers.