H2Oh! · La verità sull'acqua pubblica di Palermo

Every year, Palermo goes through the equivalent of 80 million plastic water bottles. A huge number, fed largely by a widespread and often unfounded distrust of tap water — myths about limescale, safety fears, beliefs that not even a reverse-osmosis filter costing hundreds of euros can fully shake. H2Oh! set out to challenge exactly that — not with slogans, but with evidence.

Between 15 January and 14 October 2025, we built a nine-month path made of science and hands-on experience. On 13 May we ran a blind-tasting session at Piazza Magione alongside a theatre performance — Teatro Atlante's Theatre of the Oppressed turned into a kind of living FAQ, able to turn a technical topic into a question of civic belonging. In June, at the Giardino Inglese, we ran "Scriviamo di Acqua!", a sensory workshop open to the public. The path closed on 14 October with a multidisciplinary conference, "Is public water safe?", bringing together experts and institutions.

The numbers tell a story of real participation: around 300 citizens involved in in-person activities, 200 taking part in double-blind tastings — and the figure that surprised us most is that 38% preferred the tap water without knowing what they were drinking. In schools we reached at least 150 students through educational workshops, and throughout the project we carried out certified chemical and bacteriological mapping and analysis, to dismantle prejudice with verifiable data instead of opinions.

The project drew on a broad, cross-sector coalition: the Comune di Palermo through its Environmental Policy department and the Prima Circoscrizione, AMAP spa as the water utility, the University of Palermo's Biochemistry department and the Nephrology unit at Policlinico Paolo Giaccone on the scientific side, and on the third-sector side Teatro Atlante, NewBookClub Community Lab, Transistor and Rinascimento Green, plus the Istituto Comprensivo Statale "Rita Borsellino" for the schools programme. All of it running on a €9,500 budget from PuntoSud under the Italia/NoPlanetB agreement.

The most concrete result landed on institutional advocacy: AMAP began updating its water-quality data online, and the city committed to installing direct water fountains in schools. Alongside that, the project significantly strengthened our in-house press office's capacity, with media coverage that included TGR Sicilia, Giornale di Sicilia, ANSA and BlogSicilia — 13 features across 9 different outlets, spanning TV segments and online articles. H2Oh! proves something we care deeply about: scientific evidence, told with the right tools, can become shared trust — and shared trust can change a city's habits.