- Acqua Sordida, translating to ‘dirty water’, contains pieces of plastic to highlight the impact of single-use plastic bottles
- British adults will get through more than 200 billion single use plastic water bottles in their lifetime
- 47% of Brits don’t think about the impact of plastic bottles on their health, despite 93% of bottled water containing microplastic contamination*
- Visit the Ocean Bottle website and pledge to end your toxic relationship with plastic bottles
Today, Ocean Bottle released Acqua Sordida, a premium water bottle brand that encourages the UK to end its toxic relationship with plastic bottles. Filled with ‘bits’ representing the microplastics from our waterways, Acqua Sordida highlights the impact that single-use plastic bottles are having on both our environment and our bodies.
The launch comes after research, commissioned by reusable bottle brand Ocean Bottle, that adults will get through more than 200 billion single use plastic water bottles in a lifetime. The study of 2,000 people found 27 per cent of British adults are regular users with the average plastic bottle drinker buying five per month.
Most of us know that water from a plastic bottle isn’t good for our health (22%) but even then almost half (47%) of us don’t actually give much thought to the damage it could have on our physical condition when needing to buy a drink on the go.
And our toxic relationship with plastic bottles doesn’t end there, because although 88% of adults know that plastic gets dumped into the ocean every day and will end up back in our food and drink chain, the average adult is way off when estimating how many pieces of microplastic particles can be found in plastic bottled water.
Ocean Bottle’s research also shows that worryingly the average person believes there to be around 64,000 particles in one litre of bottled water. But, a recent study from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) journal, found that people are consuming 240,000 tiny invisible pieces of plastic with every litre of bottled water – which is 10-100 times more than previously estimated.
The launch of Acqua Sordida aims to highlight this problem by showing our relationship with plastic water bottles has become toxic and calls on the British public to do so by taking a pledge via its website this Valentines Day. And, it’s not just Ocean Bottle who believes this relationship has become toxic, as 61% of those surveyed are trying to cut back on their use of plastic bottles, and believe that big brands are not doing enough to prevent particles of plastic getting into the ocean.
CEO and Co-Founder of Ocean Bottle, Will Pearson, said, “Valentine’s Day is a time for us to take stock of our relationships, and our research shows that a lot more of us need to take stock of our current relationship with bottled water. We are literally drinking particles of plastic with every plastic bottle of water we drink. At Ocean Bottle we believe it’s high time we end our toxic relationship with plastic bottles – it’s better for the ocean and better for our health.”
Acqua Sordida’s release follows the announcement that Ocean Bottle has saved one billion bottles from going into the ocean so far – for every reusable bottle they sell, Ocean Bottle collects 1000 plastic bottles in places where plastic pollution is worst.
The campaign encourages the public to show some love to our planet and have a clean break from plastic water bottles once and for all, by ending their toxic relationship this Valentine’s Day and taking a pledge to do this via the Ocean Bottle website. Everyone who takes the pledge will be in with a chance to win a limited edition Fire red reusable Ocean Bottle.