Life Water Way

On May 23, 2017, the European Commission co-financing for the candidature “Creating a new concept of natural drinking fountains and demonstration its viability along St. James´ Way LIFE16 ENV / ES / 000533 WATER WAY” was approved.

The objective of this project is simple: to provide a supply of drinking water to the Camino Inglés, as an example of mitigating the environmental impacts resulting from the consumption of bottled water on nature trails and European Cultural Routes.

The scope of action of the Life Water Way is the Camino Inglés and provides a solution to these needs by creating a new natural drinking fountain model that allows the supply of water with a health guarantee from groundwater collections, through an autonomous purification treatment. It also has an expedition system designed for exclusive use by filling reusable bottles. On the other hand, for the sake of economic sustainability, in the event of the existence of controlled municipal supply networks, the project promotes the complementary installation of fountains with connections to them and the same dispatch system.

The project has demonstrated that providing drinking water for long-distance hikers, through a network of 28 drinking fountains suitable for filling reusable containers, prevents the generation of plastic waste and the emission of greenhouse gases due to the consumption of bottled water. Thus, during the year of evaluation of the pilot network of the Camino Inglés, the use of 400,000 single-use ½ litre bottles has been avoided, preventing the generation of 4.92 tons of plastic waste and the emission of 339 tons of CO2.

To promote the reusable containers, an  online store has been launched, that allows pilgrims to buy their bottles from anywhere in the world (it is available in Spanish and English) through card payment. The delivery can be made both at home and at authorized collection points at no cost. Finally, the platform serves to highlight the founts network, and destination of part of the purchase price (retail price 15€), to the recovery of the financial costs of the founts network.

In this way, it has been made possible for the more than 30,000 users of the route to refill their reusable container with water from the fountains every 5 km, approximately the distance travelled in one hour, a form of local consumption, which means taking advantage of a service with a lower carbon footprint, available in our territorial environment, in accordance with the objectives of the new European Directive (EU) 2020/2184.