Bluewater calls for complete ban on single-use plastic bottles, recycled or otherwise; says protecting ocean and human health an urgent priority

Hong Kong, January 24, 2018 – Bluewater top executive Anders Jacobson urged environmentalists, national governments, businesses and individual citizens attending the Volvo Ocean Race Hong Kong Ocean Summit to come together and find ways to ban single-use plastics and especially bottles to halt their impact on the health of the planet’s oceans and ultimately human wellbeing.

Scientists believe that plastics pollution of the planet’s ocean is not only threatening marine life but is also already impacting human health, resulting in hormonal changes causing cancers, obesity and reproduction problems.

“We already see the cascading changes being wrought on the ocean ecosystem by some six decades of unmitigated plastics pollution,” said Jacobson, co-founder and CEO of Blue, the holding company owning Bluewater. He noted how the planet’s reliance on plastic has left a legacy of polluted beaches, overflowing landfills and micro-plastic particles that have entered the water ecosystem and the marine and human food chains.

Speaking to over 200 leading Hong Kong lawmakers, business people and environmental activists, Jacobson said the threat posed by environmental ocean pollution could no longer be resolved by mere recycling. Instead, he said, with Hongkongers alone dumping 5.2 million plastic bottles every day according to Green Earth, the single-use plastics issue demands a complete rethink when it comes to production and use.

“With less than ten percent of the 480 billion plastic drinking water bottles produced yearly being recycled, it is surely time we rid ourselves and the planet of these unsustainable materials, that have already led to micro particles ending up in our tap water,” said Anders.

Late last year, Bluewater committed to building a planet-wide movement that will harness human ingenuity to help bring cleaner, healthier water to everyone and create plastic-free oceans.

Bluewater has launched a strategic push to fast-track wider public access to clean drinking water and disrupt the global beverage’s industry reliance on single-use plastic bottles. This game changing step is emphasised by Bluewater’s announcement this week that it was joining forces with South Africa’s I-Drop Water, a for-profit social impact company that designs, builds and installs drinking water purification and dispensing machines in general grocery stores.

Bluewater today offers the technology and business models that can help end the need for single-use plastic bottles. Our water purification and dispensing systems offer a very viable solution to generate water at source where it is needed, using even water considered undrinkable, which helps conserve existing water reserves and stops the need for long-distance transportations.

“We have the ingenuity, we have the solutions, all we need is the commitment of mindful businesses, caring public citizens and concerned lawmakers who want to leave a strong legacy for future generations. Let’s do it together, let’s make the change towards a world free of single-use plastics,” Jacobson concluded.

#NoSingleUsePlastics #NoSingleUsePlasticsHK

For more information, please contact David Noble at david.noble@bluewatergroup.com or +44 7785 302 694