While the issue of plastic pollution plagues New Zealand, water fountains to fill up reusable bottles are few and far between.
RefillNZ 's Jill Ford had responses from 34 councils around the country about their water fountain figures and is urging the Government to increase the number of public drinking fountains suitable for refilling reusable drink bottles.
On average, there was one drinking fountain per 3,303 people - going down to one per 17,000 in the areas most scarce.
"We simply don’t have enough drinking fountains to turn the tide on single-use plastic bottle waste," Ms Ford said.
"Our primary focus should be on refusing, reducing and reusing, then recycling, especially since a lot of bottled drinks are consumed on the go and never make it to a kerbside recycling bin," she said.
"While water fountains could be considered a ‘nice to have’ by councils, they are an important way to reduce waste going to landfill, especially now that people are more often carrying a reusable water bottle and looking for somewhere to refill."
The council with the smallest fountain to people ratio was the Mackenzie District at 1:643, followed by Queenstown Lakes District at one fountain to 907 people.
Hastings had 0.29 per 5000 people.
A report in January released by WasteMINZ identified 39 per cent of household plastic bottles and containers were being sent to landfills, despite their potential to be recycled.
Other findings of the report showed New Zealand households were throwing out 1.76 billion plastic containers per year.
The most common item being disposed of to either recycling or rubbish bins is the single-use drink bottle - 188 per household per year.
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