Meet the teens tackling plastic water bottle waste

A group of teenagers, disappointed by the sight of single-use plastic water bottles being dumped in their village, have decided to take matters into their own hands and find a solution.

Quench is a campaign run out of the village of Porlock, nestled among the Exmoor hills in Somerset, encouraging businesses to stop selling bottles of water - and instead offer free refill locations.

The group want to get every business to sign up to their scheme, and have even had corporate donations of water bottles and a filter.

Imogen, 14, who is leading the project, said the sight of plastic water bottles was "sad and disappointing".

The team is called While We Still Can, and is operating through community performance group Stacked Wonky - it hopes Porlock will become the first place in the UK to completely remove plastic water bottles from shop shelves.

It's already been given a committment to the campaign by around 85% of the businesses in the village, with 17 refill points on the high street, and has even installed a 24/7 facility at the church.

After doing some beach cleans and river walks, Imogen said: "Everywhere you look was plastic.

"Why do you need to buy the water anyway? What's the point of buying it when you can get it from a tap. It's insane.

"It ends up in our oceans and kills our animals. It's sad to see what our planet has turned into."

She added she was confident she could convert the remaining businesses to her campaign.

Helen Buller, the manager of the Whortleberry Tea Room in Porlock, said she signed up in the belief the young people need a better future.

"Everybody tries to get involved in things like this, which is really important," she said, adding Stacked Wonky is "great ... we want to support them."

"We get a lot of walkers here and at the moment they are carrying vast amounts of water when they're going out to do the the coastal walks ... they bring down a bag full of bottles to fill for them to go out on the day, and the majority of those now are refillable bottles rather than plastic, which is great."

Water bottle company Chilly's has donated £1,250 worth of its products to the campaign, with Doulton handing over one of its water filters.

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