Refill: Taking Plastic out of Triathlon

Triathlon Ireland is partnering with not-for-profit company Refill to encourage its clubs and events to reduce their use of plastic.

Every year, triathlons in Ireland hand out thousands of plastic bottles to participants – a necessary measure but also one that generates a substantial amount of single use plastic. 

Triathlon Ireland’s partnership with Refill is aimed at encouraging events to adopt water stations with reusable containers – a measure already in place at a number of events across the country including DCT and Pikeman Rosslare Triathlon.

Skip Single Use PLastic

In 2019, Triathlon Ireland stopped issuing physical membership cards – a measure that has prevented more than 280kg of plastic from entering the environment. Replacing plastic bottles with water stations at some of the 200 triathlon events held in Ireland each year could remove even more plastic from our sport according to Barry O’Connor from Refill.

He explains how his company can help races:

“Refill Ireland allows event organisers to skip single use, skip waste generation, skip a need for recycling and go straight to waste prevention while providing the same drinking water quality service to their clients and promoting a new Irish circular economy.”

Barry O’Connor says this allows more and more events to occur but without the corresponding increase in waste generation for which Ireland sadly has one of the highest per capita figures in Europe.

Triathlon Ireland’s Operations Manager Orla Nugent says partnering with Refill is a modest but effective step towards making triathlon more sustainable: “Sport has such a powerful impact on people’s wellbeing, but it’s important to make sure that this doesn’t come at a cost to the environment. At Triathlon Ireland we want our sport to take place in clean air and water, on clean pathways and on clean roads. To do that we have a responsibility to ensure we are minimising our plastic use – using Refill for drinking water supply is an effective way for our events to do this.” 

Bring Refill to Your Race

If you are a club or race organiser interested in reducing plastic use, get in touch by phone or email.

Email: info@refill.ie

Phone: 087 052 5449

You can also leave a message on their site.

About Refill

Refill.ie was started in 2017 by Barry O’Connor who realised that most of us had completely lost our connection to what happens with our waste — and if more people had access to public drinking water and a reusable bottle, they could make an immediate impact on the amount of plastic waste in Ireland.

Supported by a network of funders & philanthropic organisations such as Rethink Ireland, county & city councils, we set out to start a community-led movement. Refill.ie is here to help solve the plastic problem with practical solutions.

What began in 2017 as two people making a decision to take on single use plastic has become a community-led movement — bringing people together to reduce pollution right at the source.

Refill.ie aims to have free drinking water access while outside our homes within 400m of anywhere you are in Ireland, ultimately making us a refill oriented nation once again with respect to drinking water.

We’re well known for selling reusable water bottles & water stations, and for good reason. We believe that making the switch to a reusable water bottle & refilling is one of the most important changes anyone can make to help reduce plastic pollution.

Moving forward isn’t about beating ourselves up for being human, it’s about leadership, empathy, connections, innovative solutions, curiosity & impact with fun on the journey.

Progression over perfection allows us to learn together. Never underestimate how big changes really do start with tiny choices. Our shared vision is changing Ireland’s hydration on the go.