As the documentary Tapped, screened for the first time in Australia at the Bundanoon Hall on Saturday, showed, the bottled water industry is a multi-national giant, with the US market alone worth $3.6 billion in 2008.

So how does a small town in the Southern Highlands come to take a stand against this commercial mammoth – and how can it expect to make a difference?

The worldwide publicity achieved by Bundy-On-Tap shows that Bundanoon’s action is already making a difference. Millions have taken notice and many are asking how they can follow suit.

As Bundy-On-Tap spokesman Bob Thomas told listeners at the launch on Saturday, the success of Bundanoon’s bottle-water free push is due to a high level of community awareness about the damage caused by the bottled water industry and the foolishness of paying for something that is available for nothing and businesses that were willing to take a chance on an something that had been done nowhere else in the world.

“The last factor has to do with the ‘can do’ attitude of the community,” Mr Thomas said. “There are many towns where people recognize problems and talk about problems but in this town we set about fixing problems.

“You need to congratulate yourself on that – you made it happen.”

That’s the real key to the Bundy-On-Tap story: When Bundanoon says it will do something, it usually does.