World's First Biodegradable Water Bottle
The highly anticipated California-born Cove will soon hit the shelves. Thwarted by supply chain challenges and pandemic delays, the first biodegradable water bottle's ambitions have been in development for about half a decade.
Quoting Alex Totterman, founder and executive director of Cove, "I started Cove 4 years ago and it's been a challenging process to get to where we are now, but we believe what we are doing is important and I've never been more excited about the future than right now. We all have a real chance to be part of the tipping point in the fight against plastic pollution, with a completely new approach. We think it's important to accelerate the adoption of sustainable materials like PHA, to replace plastics for good."
After years of testing, Cove concluded that the bottle's natural biopolymer background would take five years maximum to biodegrade into the Earth and oceans without releasing any harmful waste.
The body of the plastic-free bottle is made of PHA (polyhydroxyalkanoates), a type of cooking oil from restaurants. Meanwhile, 100% plant-based algae ink is used for the colorant of the product. The eggshell-white bottle in a robust cylindrical shape, according to Alex Totterman, may leave most onlookers unaware of its non-plastic build.
The startup has received $20 million in funding since 2018 from notable figures like Marc Benioff, the co-founder of Salesforce, James Murdoch, the heir to the Murdoch media empire, and Valor Equity Partners, a pioneering investor in Tesla Inc. Music artists like Diplo, Kygo, and Ellie Goulding have invested in Cove, the first biodegradable water bottle firm in the world, as a way to reduce the use of plastic.
Cove reports that its environmentally friendly water bottles will sell for $2.99 each, and it is now almost prepared to produce 20 million bottles annually to meet demand from major retailers and brands.
