Blog post -
Are We Screwed? A Call to Action on World Environment Day from a Swedish Clean-Tech Pioneer
This World Environment Day 2025, with its focus on ending plastic pollution, marks a dangerous tipping point, warns Bengt Rittri, founder and CEO of Sweden’s global water purification and beverage company, Bluewater. Issuing a stark call to action, the veteran Swedish ecopreneur points to a groundbreaking new study—led by the University of Adelaide’s JBI and the Minderoo Foundation—that delivers a chilling truth: plastics are no longer just polluting our environment; they are actively poisoning our bodies and threatening the health of future generations.
Analyzing data from over 1.5 million people across 52 peer-reviewed studies, the conclusion is clear – chemicals in everyday plastics are linked to severe health risks, including miscarriage, cancer, infertility, and heart disease. These are not distant threats. These are our families, our futures.
How many more warnings do we need? The plastic crisis is no longer just environmental—it’s a global public health emergency.
The Health Toll of Plastics
The study outlines how plastic chemicals affect every life stage:
- Babies in the womb: miscarriage risk, abnormal development
- Children: developmental delays, asthma, obesity, early puberty
- Adults: infertility, diabetes, thyroid issues, cancer, heart disease
Dr. Christos Symeonides, a pediatrician and study co-author, called plastics “an inescapable part of modern life,” urging immediate action to reduce chemical exposure.
Shockingly, none of the 3,600 peer-reviewed studies reviewed in The Plastic Health Map focused on micro- or nanoplastics—despite their growing presence in our food, water, and air.
The Bigger Picture
Global plastic production hit 460 million metric tons in 2019 and is projected to nearly triple by 2060. Over 75% of all plastic ever made still exists today—polluting oceans, soil, and drinking water.
Jay Weatherill of the Minderoo Foundation put it bluntly: “We cannot recycle our way out of this crisis.”
A Call for a Global Plastics Treaty
Ahead of the August 2025 UN plastics treaty negotiations in Geneva, Bluewater joins global demands for a binding agreement that includes:
- Reducing fossil fuel–based plastic production
- Banning harmful chemicals in plastics
- Mandatory safety testing for plastic chemicals
- Ongoing human exposure monitoring
- Independent funding for health-impact research
It’s Time to Act
If governments and industry won’t lead, we must. This is not about politics—it’s about survival.
At Bluewater, we’re committed to clean, safe drinking water. But we can’t do it alone. Real change requires a global movement—urgent, bold, and united. That’s why our mission since I founded Bluewater in 2013 has been to innovate and bring to market planet-friendly technologies that end the need for the 600 billion single-use plastic bottles manufactured every year, with few being recycled.
Let’s be the generation that fought back.
Let’s be the generation that reclaimed the future from plastic.
Let’s be the generation that uses sustainable, refillable bottles and says no to the plastic bottles polluting our planet, our bodies and our ocean and land environments with toxic chemicals and microplastics.
Not tomorrow. Now.
I ask you to join the Refill Generation now. Ditch single-use plastic bottles, demand change, and be the force that turns the tide. The time to act is here – our future is on the line.
#BEATPLASTICPOLLUTION #RefillGeneration
