Gym clothes, water and shampoo bottles, facial scrubs, car interiors, to-go boxes — plastic is everywhere. It also inevitably ends up in the ocean: There are now several massive garbage patches spinning in various oceans around the world.
Plastic is also entering our bodies. Recent studies show nanoplastics in bottled water, in the food chain, and in prepared food served in plastic. Human health risks are not yet known.
The Aspen Ideas: Climate summit, which ran from Monday through Wednesday in Miami Beach, gathered an array of global experts to bat around ideas about how to solve climate and pollution problems.
The panel “Taking Out the Trash: Solutions to plastic pollution” looked at how innovation is starting, just barely, to address the plastic problem. One startup is launching stainless-steel shareable water bottles, while the largest beauty company on the planet is pushing the industry to take tons of single-use plastic off store shelves and replace them with pouches. Here’s a look at those potential solutions.
Bike sharing, but with water bottles
In a bike-sharing concept, you ride a bike you don’t own, then drop it off at a bike station. Trying something similar for water bottles might sound outlandish, but according to Manuela Zoninsein, it’s not only possible, it’s profitable.
Zoninsein is CEO of Kadeya, a Chicago-based startup that eliminates single-use bottles by creating what they call a “bottling plant the size of a vending machine.”
Users get a stainless steel bottle of water, drink it, and return it to any of Kadeya’s vending machines.
The machine is automated to then sterilize it, refill the bottle with tap water and reseal it for the next user, and stainless-steel bottles don’t need the plastic films found in aluminum cans.
For now, Kadeya places the machines at self-contained locations such as construction sites or military bases, but they have their sights on sports arenas, movie theaters, hotels, airports and…
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