Portugal's Mirpuri Foundation Sailing Academy first in the world to welcome a Bluewater hydration station to encourage water awareness

Stockholm,Sweden, April 29, 2021 – A Bluewater water station has been installed at Portugal's top sailing academy to bring students water as pure as nature intended and promote greater awareness of ocean sustainability and health threats posed by microplastics in a first-ever move for sailing schools around the world.

The joint initiative between Portugal's Mirpuri Foundation and Sweden's Bluewater, saw a drinking water station installed at the Mirpuri Foundation Sailing Academy (Clube Naval de Cascais), founded in 1938 to promote and develop sailing in Portugal and uphold traditional values of sportsmanship and the pursuit of excellence

The initiative is designed to promote health, raise awareness of the importance of drinking water free of chemical pollutants, and drive the pressing need to discard single-use plastic bottles. Bluewater hydration stations help to deliver fresh and safe water by removing up to 99% of impurities from water, including microplastics, that affect human health.

Due to the ongoing effort to raise awareness of the harmful effects of single-use plastics on our planet, young sailors from the Mirpuri Foundation Sailing Academy are already made conscious of this issue in the academy’s curriculum. 

To continue encouraging good practices, the water station launch saw a special educational water awareness session for the Sailing Academy’s young sailors.

The session, led by the Mirpuri Foundation, explained the importance of good hydration to the human body, pointing out the benefits of drinking filtered water to stay healthy.

Since the headquarters of the Mirpuri Foundation Racing Team are also at Clube Naval de Cascais, a number of crew members participated in the session to help to further enhance the children’s interest in the topics discussed.

Both the children and the sailing team had the opportunity to use the Bluewater station for the first time, filling their reusable bottles with fresh, safer and, primarily, healthier water.

Dave Noble, Bluewater PR and Communications Director, said: “Everyone has the right to clean water but industrial, agricultural and plastic pollution together with growing scarcity is making it harder to access something that is vital to our very existence and wellbeing. Bluewater has put harnessing human ingenuity to create tap water as pure as nature intended and ending the need for single use plastic bottles at the heart of our business mission. We are overjoyed to be working with the Mirpuri Foundation, who share our sustainability commitment to creating a better world for future generations.”

At the water station launch, Ana Agostinho, Mirpuri Foundation’s representative, noted: "This is a milestone for the Mirpuri Foundation and Bluewater. We have been thinking about placing a water station here for a long time now and it’s amazing to see this finally taking place. Young sailors, especially ones so committed to the ocean and sustainability as the ones here at the Mirpuri Foundation Sailing Academy, will benefit a lot from this incredible opportunity provided by Bluewater: they will have fresh clean water, this will help tackle single-use plastic bottles and, ultimately, this will motivate them to do more for our planet.”

"Gonçalo Esteves, President of Clube Naval de Cascais, said: “Today is a great day for Clube Naval de Cascais. We have been looking forward to this day, which we had to postpone because of the Covid pandemic. It’s great to have the entire cycle of sustainability closed with this machine here. The Mirpuri Foundation again was very generous with us, and brought to the Club the final statement of sustainability that we needed, and I hope that from now all our kids can come here, all our regatta crews, everyone from the club, the members can come here and refill their own bottles because we are a plastic free club since 2018 and now we will have this amazing water with this amazing quality to fill out all the portable bottles of our members.”

The Mirpuri Foundation has been working for a long time against single-use plastic. As part of its Marine Conservation Program, the Foundation has consistently raised awareness of marine litter and plastic pollution, especially through its “Turn the Tide on Plastic” campaign, which used 2017-18 Volvo Ocean Race as a platform to share this sustainability message all over the world. As part of the Medical Research Program, the Mirpuri Foundation is also responsible for informing people about the harmful effects of plastic on human health, with microplastics being the cause of many diseases such as infertility.

Bluewater, who supplied water stations at stopovers throughout the previous edition of the Volvo Ocean Race, is a global water purification leader in innovative clean tap water technology and eco-friendly hydration solutions. Bluewater, which has put sustainability and ending the need for single use plastic bottle at the heart of its business mission, believes everyone has the right to access to pure water, without pollutants and without microplastics.

The alignment of Bluewater’s work with some of the Mirpuri Foundation’s efforts has brought the two organizations together several times in the past few years. The first encounter happened at the 2017-18 Volvo Ocean Race, where both were sustainability partners.

The Mirpuri Foundation and Bluewater have also collaborated in joint white papers about the harmful effects of plastic on human health and, very recently, one of Mirpuri Foundation’s Medical Advisors was a special guest on Bluewater’s Podcast to make an urgent call to action on limiting chemicals leeching from plastics.

This long-lasting partnership is now sustained with the water station installation at the Mirpuri Foundation Sailing Academy in Cascais, an action that aims to reinforce the efforts of both organizations, promoting a healthy lifestyle without harmful chemicals and inspiring the new generations to alter their behaviours and become themselves agents of change.

About the Mirpuri Foundation

The Mirpuri Foundation is a non-profit organization based in Portugal, and founded by entrepreneur Paulo Mirpuri with the aim of contributing to a better world for future generations. With its belief that leading by example is the best way to change mindsets, the Mirpuri Foundation fosters cooperation between legislators, corporations, communities and individuals. The Mirpuri Foundation acts in six distinct areas: Marine Conservation, Wildlife Conservation, the Performing Arts, Social Responsibility, Medical Research and Aerospace Research. The foundation’s commitment to sustainability is transversal and is reflected in all its activities. The Mirpuri Foundation is synonymous with technology, research, information and innovation. Allied to these characteristics are the values of integrity, perseverance and altruism in order to better impact the planet.

About Bluewater

Bluewater is a Swedish world leading water purification company that harnesses patented technology to deliver enhanced water quality in a world where tap water taste and safety can no longer be taken for granted. Its solutions for homes, commercial operations and public dispensers remove practically all pollutants from tap water, including all bacteria, toxic metals, pharmaceutical and chemical residues, microplastics and limescale.

More information about Bluewater can be found here