Bluewater, a world leader in clean drinking water technologies, today said human ingenuity and technology had the power to protect human health from the threat of micro plastics in a world that will see half a trillion plastic bottles produced a year by 2030.
“We all have a duty to protect planetary health and that’s why we’ve launched our Drinking Water Challenge together with our partners at 11th Hour Racing, a US non-profit promoting collaborative, systemic change benefitting the health of our ocean,” said Bluewater President Anders Jacobson. Speaking to over 100 politicians, scientists and others attending the Volvo Ocean Summit in Cardiff, he said people need to understand that “we are as much part of the solution today as we’ve been part of the problem.”
Earlier, marking World Environment Day, Anders Jacobson told the Ocean Summit that Bluewater had launched its Imagine H2O Urban Drinking Water Scarcity Challenge to encourage ‘waterpreneurs’ to come up with solutions to tackle drinking water issues in mega-cities, forecast to be home to around 90 percent of the world’s population.
Bluewater is implementing the Challenge with partner 11th Hour Racing, a U.S. non-profit promoting collaborative, systemic change benefitting the health of our ocean, with three winning start-ups to be honored at a special event held in Stockholm, Sweden, on August 27.
“Municipal water supply can contain contaminants such as lead, pharmaceutical residues or micro-plastics. Many ordinary citizens know this and seek alternatives such as bottled water, but the solution is wrong,” Mr. Jacobson told the Volvo Ocean Summit in Cardiff. He added: “We’ve created a vicious cycle where the use of single-use plastic bottles of water has been normalized for much of our water intake, creating a massive waste stream that further pollutes water supply.”
Mr. Jacobson said Bluewater was proud to be a supporter of the One Plastic Free Day initiative, organised by A Plastic Planet, which will see millions of people on World Environment Day boycott food and drink that makes use of single-use plastic packaging for 24 hours. He said Bluewater “backs the movement because it inspires people to make a choice for a more sustainable planet”.
During the summer of 2017, Bluewater water purifiers helped save the depleted water reserves of Sandhamn, an island nature reserve in the Baltic Sea that sees the year-round population of 90 people leap to 600,000 over the summer months. A Bluewater water station delivered, free of charge, thousands of liters of fresh water taken directly from the Baltic Sea to visitors to the island, an initiative that also removed the need for thirsty visitors to buy single-use plastic bottles.
“Sandhamn is a typical example of how the world’s supplies of fresh water can no longer be taken for granted. At Bluewater, we’re going to the source of the problem with extraordinary purifying systems that allow people to enjoy water as pure as nature intended, sourced from non-potable sources such as the brackish Baltic Sea, without the guilt of polluting the planet with single-use plastic or chemicals.”
