Iceland has a challenge for visitors: Drink the tap water

There’s a hot new premium Icelandic water brand to rival Poland Spring, Evian, Arrowhead, Aquafina, and even Icelandic Glacial spring water. It’s called Kranavatn.

Like its rivals, Kranavatn is pure springwater that has been naturally filtered through lava for a pristine, clean drink. Unlike its rival water brands, though, Kranavatn doesn’t come in single-use plastic bottles. Instead, it comes pouring out the taps in Iceland for free. “Kranavatn” is Icelandic for tap water and it’s part of a new campaign where Iceland is challenging its visitors to skip bottled water and drink straight out of the tap.

According to a recent survey cited by the campaign, 70% of all travelers say they don’t trust the tap water when they are away from home. So they buy plastic water bottles and chuck them in the trash or the recycling, throwing away money and resources and polluting the planet with more plastic. Some 65% of travelers say they use more plastic water bottles when they travel than at home, while 80% of all plastic water bottles end up in the ocean or a landfill. So Iceland has decided to do something about it, issuing a simple challenge to all visitors—drink the tap water.

The country is asking visitors to pledge not to use plastic water bottles while visiting Iceland, signing on the digital dotted line to do one little act to help preserve the planet from drowning in plastic. While Iceland isn’t taking a page out of Palau’s playbook and making visitors sign an eco-pledge before visiting their nation, this challenge is an important, easy step to preventing pollution before it happens. Take the challenge here.