Why is locally bottled water more sustainable?
Why is locally bottled water more sustainable?
Tapping and bottling your own water using a water cooler directly connected to the mains is way more sustainable than serving water bottled in factories far away. We’re happy to elaborate below.
Less CO2-uitstoot
With Made Blue you opt for a water cooler connected to the pipe instead of spring water or mineral water. You always tap fresh chilled water from it, in most cases filtered and sparkling if you want.
A lot of CO2 is emitted during the production of well water in the factory. A research commissioned by the Consumers’ Association showed that for bottling one glass bottle of spring water 450 grams of CO2 is emitted. That is equivalent to a car ride of about three kilometers! This is mainly due to the production of the glass, the bottling process and the transport to and from the catering industry.
REUSING IS BETTER THAN RECYCLING
Glass is made by melting sand, soda (sodium carbonate) and lime together. This is a very intensive production process and therefore costs a lot of energy.
In the Dutch hospitality industry, small bottles usually come with a deposit, large bottles usually go to glass recycling.
In both cases it is much more sustainable to reuse bottles locally, because no transport is needed and the process of melting is prevented. In addition, a bottle with a deposit is only reused for about 40 times compared to over a few hundred times with local bottling.
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A glass bottle of water from the factory emits as much CO2 as a three kilometer car drive.
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100 TRUCKS
It is difficult to express the reduction of the footprint when using a water cooler in an exact kilogram of CO2. We can give a calculation example.
Our figures show that our ambassadors in the hospitality industry serve an average of 400 bottles of water per month. This is an estimated 225 large and 75 small bottles per month. That’s about 4 roll containers.
Assuming that 12 roll containers fit in a city truck, three catering entrepreneurs together already keep one truck off the street. In other words: our 300 ambassadors together keep 100 trucks off the street every month!
Less CO2 in Africa
When people rely on polluted water, they will boil it before use, often over an open fire, especially in remote areas. By making clean drinking water available, this is no longer necessary and much less wood or coal is burned, which saves a lot of CO2 emissions and harmful smoke.
For example, the IRC calculated that a ceramic water filter produces 1.03 tons of CO2 per year per filter. Conservatively calculated with 10 users per filter and the UN figure that 1 person needs at least 20 liters of water per day, the filter is good for 73,000 liters per year. This means that 1 million liters of clean drinking water results in a CO2 saving of 13.74 tons in approximately half of our projects.
1 LITRE
Made Blue Water
= 1.000 litre
drinking water in developing countries
+ 7 kg
CO2-emissions prevented
& 500
plastic bottles or bags saved
less plastic soup
Our water projects prevent lots of plastic waste in developing countries as well. In urban slum areas, people tend to buy small quantities of clean water, packed in plastic bottles or small plastic bags, in about half of our projects.
In many cases, this plastic ends up on the streets and in rivers after use, eventually becoming part of the plastic soup. A water supply in a slum ensures that people start working with jerry cans and no longer have to throw plastic.
1000 times as much water
As an ambassador of Made Blue, you tap your own table water from a water cooler, cooled, filtered and sparkling. Each bottle is guaranteed to provide 1000 times more clean drinking water in developing countries.
For this you only donate 21 cents per bottle of 0.7 liters and you pay a cost-effective fee for equipment and glassware. This makes us in many cases cheaper than spring water and mineral water.
Let’s have a look how to serve the best water for the world at your place!
The best water for you
This is how we call our water solutions the best water for the world.
They can also be the best water for you, your guests and your employees.
We have solutions for the hospitality industry, office and on the road.
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If you use a water cooler to tap your own water for your restaurant, it will save you a lot of time compared to serving factory bottled water: up to 60% according to our ambassadors.
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