We take it for granted: turning on the tap and watching clean, fresh drinking water flow out. Yet that simple gesture conceals hundreds of checks, regulations, tariffs, and hundreds of people working to make it all possible. Access to public water is one of the great achievements of our time, and for this reason citizen movements, water service operators and associations have launched dozens of campaigns to promote a service that is now recognised as an inalienable right.

Some are original and chic, like the one that has been running in Paris for years. Eau de Paris, the public company managing the French capital's integrated water service, makes available to all Parisians, public venues and tourists branded bottles and carafes depicting the city's famous monuments and landmarks. They can be purchased directly in a boutique; price: 10 euros. Some of these are genuine design objects, and they all carry the same message: Paris's tap water is good, safe and sustainable.

Others are decidedly pragmatic, with very specific goals: reducing water waste. So it was that Los Angeles mayor Eric Michael Garcetti, during one of the worst drought periods the city has ever faced, launched the "Save the Drop" campaign. The campaign aimed to cut the municipality's water consumption by 20 per cent. The people of Los Angeles responded en masse, and within a few years millions of hectolitres had been saved — a result that astonished Mayor Garcetti himself.

Then there are campaigns aimed at schools, designed to raise pupils' awareness of the value of tap water and encourage a reduction in bottled water consumption. Through the "A Tip:Tap" project, water fountains were installed in a number of Berlin schools, available to all students. The idea was to prevent pupils from bringing bottled water or drinking from toilet taps. Alongside the installation of the fountains, students also followed educational courses to learn how to recognise quality water, understand who works at a water company and how, and discover the environmental impact of bottled water.

In Italy, an initiative launched in Milan concerns the Case dell'acqua (water houses), dotted across all the municipalities of the metropolitan area. Built by Gruppo Cap in partnership with the municipalities it serves, these are facilities for distributing still and sparkling water. They dispense mains water — the same water that comes from the aqueduct — as a way of promoting and making accessible a pure, wholesome supply.
And across the area served by Cap, as in Berlin, the company has just installed its first water fountains in schools: the structures, shaped like a water drop, are called Water Drop and are available to students in the Milan area.

In Venice, also in an educational context, the public multi-utility Veritas (Veneziana energia risorse idriche territorio ambiente servizi) has trialled a new approach with students, particularly teenagers. It launched a Peer Education project, in which communication and the transfer of knowledge is carried out by fostering young people's active role and increasing their participation: 4 hours of lessons with students in their fourth and fifth years, during which not only materials are handed out, but classes are held on training and communication around the topics covered. A day not just of study, but of participation and learning.

Not every city in the world, however, can count on a drinking water distribution network. In Nairobi, Kenya, water and sanitation services are often in short supply. In response, water ATMs have been built and made available to residents. These are genuine vending machines that, instead of money, dispense drinking water at a fair price and with guaranteed quality.

There is no shortage of long-standing awareness campaigns either, such as the series of cartoons drawn by one of Italy's greatest cartoonists, Bruno Bozzetto. Produced in collaboration with the Wwf, this campaign travelled around the world. Each short in the series depicts a major ecological problem of our time and offers advice on how to reduce pollution and improve quality of life, especially for the youngest. Among Bozzetto's animations, there is of course one dedicated to the theme of water, in which adults are shown continuously polluting it by throwing in waste and toxic substances, only to realise in the end that the child trying to drink a glass of water is faced with something resembling a poisoned potion.

One of the longest-running campaigns on public and tap water is undoubtedly "Imbrocchiamola!", produced by Legambiente and Altraeconomia. The aim was to promote the use of "the Mayor's water", particularly in Italian homes and school canteens. But to promote tap water, well-known water bottle and flask manufacturers have also run dedicated awareness campaigns. Swiss brand Sigg, for example, created genuine eco-flasks — branded and produced in limited edition. All bearing unmistakable messages: from "Reuse, reduce, recycle" to "Water is everyone's right".