“These changes affect many Australians, especially the changes associated with increases in the frequency or intensity of heat events, fire weather and drought. Australia wants to adapt to some level of climate change.

Australia is projected to experience:

• Further increases in sea and air temperatures, with more hot days and marine heat waves, and fewer cool extremes.
• Further sea level rise and ocean acidification.
• Decreases in rainfall across southern Australia with more time in drought, but increasing in intense heavy rainfall throughout Australia. “

Bureau of Meteorology (BOM): State of the Climate 2018.

But Australia has always been a dry country. 80 percent of Australia’s area is semi-arid and desert areas with less than 250 mm of precipitation per year. The centre of the country remains largely dry throughout the year. Thus, Australians are used to periods of drought and water scarcity. Almost always and everywhere you are advised to drink enough water. And that is made easy here …

Public water fountains

If you walk in Australian cities or parks, you will find a public water fountain every few hundred meters. This can be a simple faucet or even a flash state-of-the-art dispenser, where you can fill up your bottle at different levels (for kids and adults) and also the omnipresent dogs (see article “Dogland“) have their own permanently installed water bowl.

These water dispensers are very handy as you hardly have to carry your own water around or just in small bottles that you can refill again and again. When I go for a run in parks or along water promenades, the many water fountains come in very handy.

In some areas, such as the Yarra Valley, there are already apps that can be used to find the nearest water fountain.

Free water in restaurants, cafes and pubs

In the vast majority of restaurants, cafes and pubs drinking water is free of charge. If you are waited (which is often not the case), you habitually get a carafe and glasses on the table after sitting down. Alternatively, there may be a water dispenser at the bar or self-serve bottles in a fridge, where you can serve yourself as often as you want for free. Otherwise, just ask. I have never experienced that you do not get water. And it is usually chilled as well.

If you walk in a city and you cannot find a public water fountain, just go to a cafe or pub and ask for tap-water. In many cases you will get it for free, even if you do not consume anything there.

However, in most states (e.g., WA or VIC), it is required by law that premises with an alcohol licence must offer drinking water free of charge.

Though, in a few exceptional cases, you are sometimes asked for a small fee for e.g. providing and cleaning the glasses.

Tap or bottled water?

A litre of tap water costs only a fraction of a cent, but you can pay several dollars for a litre of bottled water – and the costs over time can add up considerably. If you drink two litres a day from the tap, you’ll pay about $1.50 a year. Drink the same amount from single-serve bottles, however, and you could be looking at more than $2800 a year.

A large proportion of this cost comes from producing the plastic bottle, lid and label. And less than half of these PET plastic bottles are actually recycled. The remaining 60% will be taken directly to the landfill.

The US research organization “The Pacific Institute” estimates that the production of the plastic bottle consumes twice as much water as in the bottle itself. This means that each litre consumed actually represents three litres of water.

You can drink Australian tap water without hesitation. Its quality monitoring is the responsibility of each state health department. Tap water has to comply with the Australian drinking water guidelines set by the National Health and Medical Research Council. The guidelines define safe and high-quality and how this quality is achieved and secured.

And 45% of the bottled water is just bottled tap water.

Interesting Links:

• Tapcafés in Sydney

The post Australia – very dry but water everywhere appeared first on GoAustralia.

1. No hauling of water crates from the beverage market
2. Unlimited water at any time (comes from the water pipe)
3. Excellent quality of the water (the Munich drinking water comes fresh from the Alpine foothills)
4. Much cheaper than mineral water from the bottleshop (carbonating 60l with C02 is about € 8.95 – as of 2018)

We had several gas cylinders, so we did not always had to run for exchanging an empty one, and several pretty attractive glass bottles which also looked good on the tabel.

In Australia, we wanted to continue to use our “sparkling equipment” and since Sodastream® is represented worldwide, we also saw no problem in filling our carbonated bottles on the Gold Coast. Well …

First of all, the employees of the removalist refused to pack the gas bottles, even if they were empty. Gas bottles of any kind should generally not be packed in moving containers. Well, then our friends back in Munich were happy about some more exchange cylinders.

Arriving in Australia, we immediately bought a new filled carbonated cylinder after unpacking our removal boxes and the water bubbler. Then at home, I realized that Sodastream® in Australia uses other screw threads for their devices. Even adapters or usable spare parts were not available.

Sodastream® Australia writes on its website under the FAQs:

“Can I use my CO2 Cylinder that I bought outside of Australia or take a CO2 Cylinder bought in Australia abroad?

Australian CO2 Cylinders use a specific cylinder thread, so you may not be able to find these compatible Cylinders anywhere other than in Australia. If you have bought a Cylinder or a Sparkling Water Maker from outside of Australia, it will not work.”

I should have read that in Europe. So our Sodastream® sparkling water maker we bought in Europe was useless :-(. So we had to buy a new device, but anyway, we could use the 3 brought glass bottles then – we thought at least, because wherever we looked, nowhere we found a suitable device from Sodastream® It was not until we bought a standard plastic bottle kit here, that I later read on the Sodastream® website that they would now be offering sparkling water makers for glass bottles in Australia (called “Crystal Titan”), but where?

In any case, we could now indulge in the bubbling experience, because same arguments for using one in Germany would also apply here in Australia, right?

1. No hauling of water crates from the beverage market
   Also applies in Australia, although there are no water crates here but only cardboard boxes and you throw the disposable plastic bottles into the recycling container after use.
2. Unlimited water at any time (comes from the water pipe)
3. Excellent quality of the water
   Unlike Sodastream® in Germany, Sodastream® Australia does not refer to the excellent water quality of tap water…. The tap water in Australia is safe to drink everywhere, but depending on the region, more or less chlorine and fluoride are added. You can smell that immediately, when you let the water run out of the tap. And especially with freshly bubbled water, the chlorine smell unfolds extremely. And the opinions differ if chlorine is always harmless in the amounts added to the tap water  …
4. Much cheaper than bottled water
   A CO2-filling costs about AUD 19.50 which is – according to the current exchange rate – about €12.25 so 37% more expensive than in Germany. If you do not calculate the purchase price of the sparkling water maker, you get 60 litres of bubbled water per cylinder to a litre price of AUD 0.33. At Coles, however, one litre of carbonated spring water (and no added chlorine) costs AUD 0.53.

Nevertheless, we have decided again for fizzing. Since recycling in Australia is not yet very well-endowed, most of the household waste (also from the recycling bins) ends up in the landfill (waste incineration does not exist in Australia). And since we drink about 3 and more litres of water a day, that would be about 750 1.5l plastic bottles from our household for the dump. Add to that the effort of buying, storing and always having sufficient supplies at home.

The problem of chlorine could be addressed with filters, but filters are not cheap and must always be replaced regularly for hygienic reasons. And regarding the amount of our water consumption we would then instead of buying water bottles regularly buying water filters …

We leave the water in large glass containers open for at least 24 hours, which allows the chlorine to escape almost completely. And then you can drink freshly bubbled water again, aaaah …

The post Sodastream® – fresh drinking water at any time? appeared first on GoAustralia.