Water bottle filling station: how Shell brought free tap water to an EV-charging forecourt
At a Shell forecourt café, drivers can now refill a bottle at a water bottle filling station instead of buying one more single-use bottle at the till. Join the Pipe supplied the tap: a countertop unit mounted right at the counter, next to the Shell Café signage and the EV chargers outside.
The setup on site
The photo on this page shows the unit branded with a "Shell Café" disc on top and a "Watered by Shell" bottle underneath it, filling straight from the tap into a clear reusable bottle. The tap sits on a small counter plinth with a built-in drip tray, next to a sign for the branded bottle itself: buy the bottle once, then come back to refill it for free while your car charges.
What the tap is and where it fits
By its shape, a rounded gooseneck spout on a compact plinth with an embossed drip tray, this matches Join the Pipe's Bar Tap Built-in: a single-tap countertop model designed for exactly this kind of counter placement (retail, forecourt, hospitality bar). It needs no minimum order quantity, since every tap is made to order, and it can be bought outright or, for event use, rented by the day. For a permanent forecourt installation like this one, buying makes more sense than the day-rate event rentals.
Why a fuel and EV-charging stop is a good place for a refill tap
An EV charge takes a lot longer than a regular fill-up, and the EU's Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulation is pushing exactly this kind of fast-charging hub onto motorway and forecourt sites across Europe. That waiting time is what turns a forecourt shop into a place people actually browse, and a free water bottle filling station gives them a reason to bring a reusable bottle back instead of grabbing a plastic one off the shelf.
A recurring order, not a one-off
WeFact records show this isn't an isolated pilot: in 2022, a Shell forecourt operator (Ri-Jo Tankstations, running the Shell Station De Hackelaar site) ordered 115 Kumasi bottles branded for Shell, and in 2025 Shell's own EV Charging Solutions business ordered 40 Nairobi bottles in white with a turquoise carrier ring. Over 150 branded bottles across two separate Shell entities, three years apart, point to a standing relationship with the brand rather than a single forecourt's one-time buy.
The bottle: 99% sugarcane, not oil-based plastic
Both the Kumasi and Nairobi bottles ordered for Shell are made from 99% sugarcane-based bioplastic, chemically identical to conventional HDPE but CO2-negative across its lifecycle instead of oil-based. They're Braskem "I'm green™" certified, BPA-free, EU food-contact compliant (EC 10/2011) and dishwasher-safe to 65°C, which matters for a bottle that's meant to be refilled for months rather than thrown away after one fill.
Every printed bottle Join the Pipe ships also funds one donated to a school water project in Africa, the foundation's Buy One Give One model. See the Bar Tap Built-in product page for a similar counter installation, browse the full tap range or the retail placements page, or look at the Kumasi and Nairobi bottle models used here.