Call to arms against plastic bottles

Oct 16, 2017 by Triton Staff

Bengt Rittri, the Swedish environmental entrepreneur who founded Stockholm-based water purification company Bluewater Group, spoke out prior to the Oct. 11 opening of the 2017-2018 Volvo Ocean Race in Alicante, Spain, to urge everyone on the planet to join him in a movement to change the existing water distribution and consumption model that sees billions of plastic bottles being shipped from one side of the world to another.

Rittri spoke of a vast tide of plastic waste that sees more than a million plastic bottles being sold every minute and less than 9 percent recycled, and noted that many of those bottles will end up as litter in the oceans. He pointed out that technology already exists to end the need for single-use plastic bottles.

“We want to harness human ingenuity to develop disruptive transformational thinking that will provide more people around the globe with on-demand clean drinking water in ways that will help bring an end to the need for throwaway plastic bottles,” Rittri said

Bluewater Group has partnered with Volvo Ocean Race entry Vestas 11th Hour Racing, which aims to be the most sustainable competitor in the nine-month-long round-the-world event. Bluewater water purifiers will generate pure drinking water in the team and guest pavilion at 10 of the stopovers during the 12-leg race.

“Supporting Vestas 11th Hour Racing is driving many new insights and presents an opportunity for us to scale up our communication about the solutions available and share our learnings,” Rittri stated.

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