Bluewater, the global Swedish water purification and beverage solutions provider for homes, HORECA, and public dispensing that is wholly owned by purpose-driven Swedish investor Blue AB , has helped clean 85,000 kilograms (187,389.7 pounds) of plastic waste in the past three years from coastal areas – that’s the equivalent of approximately 7.1 million PET bottles. Working with Empower, an international Norwegian blockchain-enabled plastic recycling organization, the Bluewater initiative saw waste collected, sorted, and recycled in numerous African and Asian coastal areas, including Nigeria, Ghana, Rwanda, Tanzania, India, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia.

“We are delivering on our pledge to collect 1 kg of plastic from coastal environments for every one of our sustainable bottles sold,” says Bluewater founder and CEO Bengt Rittri (photo above). The Swedish environmental entrepreneur, who founded Bluewater in 2013 intending to harness human ingenuity to halt the need for destructive plastic bottles and the microplastic they leech, noted that the plastic collected would be enough to fill over 7,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

The Empower premise is simple; Incentivize people to recycle by giving them up to €0.30 per bottle returned and, at the same time, incentivize producers to participate by writing off an environmental tax. The Empower idea stems from Norway’s national plastic exchange system is incredibly effective – 97% of all plastic bottles are recycled, while the average in the US is around 30%.

Wlhelm Myrer, Empower CEO, says, “Blockchain allows for seamless tracking and monetization of plastic – even in third world countries where most of the population are unbanked. Tracking every aspect of the journey – from on-the-ground plastic pickup operations to eventual reuse in other products, allows an extremely high level of transparency attractive to a purpose-driven brand like Bluewater and consumers.”

Bengt Rittri believes that the problem of ocean plastic can be fixed using human ingenuity, which is why he is building an innovation-driven beverage organization focused on creative, conceptual approaches to what he calls ‘social water’, which is about changing attitudes and approaches to how people access and use water for drinking, cleaning, and washing.

“More and more people understand the threats posed by climate change and unsustainable use of throwaway plastics like single-use plastic bottles but don’t always realize solutions exist to many of the issues. At Bluewater, we’ve developed solutions to provide clean water on demand at home, work and play. Our approach helps end the need for single-use plastic bottles by using patented water purification technology, dispensing solutions, and sustainable bottles for people on the go or hydrating in a restaurant, canteen or hotel environment.

Editors note: Other useful facts

• The 85,000 kgs of plastic waste that Bluewater helped to clean up would be enough to fill about 7,083 Olympic-sized swimming pools with PET bottles. (Corrected based on 12 grams weight of one PET bottle to be equivalent to 7,083,333/1,000 = 7,083 Olympic-sized swimming pools)
• If you stacked 7.1 million PET bottles in a pile, it would be as tall as about 7,100 giraffes standing on top of each other.
• Laid end to end, 7.1 million PET bottles would stretch for about 8,520 kilometers (over 5,200 miles).
• The weight of 85,000 kgs of plastic waste is roughly equivalent to the weight of the plastic in about 5,625 small cars, which is the same as the weight of approximately 7.1 million PET bottles. (Corrected based on 12 grams weight of one PET bottle to be equivalent to 7,083,333/1,000 = 7,083 small cars)

About Bluewater

Bluewater has set its sights on being the world’s most planet-friendly beverage company by innovating disruptive water purification technologies for home, work and play. Providing health-enhancing hydration solutions which are generated and distributed at point of use, combined with reusable stainless steel and glass bottles, allows Bluewater to break the stranglehold of single-use plastic bottles and their unnecessary, polluting transportation. Bluewater products are available to consumers, hotel and catering operations, and event and venue organizations in Europe, the USA, the UK, China, South-East Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Bluewater has been honored with two Fast Company World Changing Ideas Awards, a K&B Kitchen Innovation of the Year Award and recognized for its sustainability efforts by numerous other publications. In 2022, Bluewater acquired the U.S. FloWater company, based in Denver, Colorado, which sells advanced water dispensers throughout North America that help a wide cross section of businesses efficiently avoid the use of single-use plastic bottles https://www.bluewatergroup.com