The Nalgene Bottle — literally everyone’s go to bottle in school or work, be it whether you’re an athlete or a working adult this bottle is one that is essential to many. Given that we live in a tropical climate, it is no wonder that this bottle has been somewhat of a uniform look to many of us, quenching our thirst in this 1liter paraphilia. Yet, did you know that the brand has recently introduced a new line of bottles called Sustain which is made from 50% recycled materials? The equivalent of 8 single-use plastic bottles.

The Plastic Problem

More often than not, it is made aware to everyone that there exists a problematic plastic problem. Plastic as a material is inexpensive and durable hence is often used for manufacturing and production for packaging. These plastic wastes litter everywhere and are usually not well disposed of, threatening both humans and wildlife. Plastics have a complex chemical composition and thus do not break down very easily; the polymer degradation takes a long period of time due to the saline and cooling conditions of the sea. A plastic beverage holder will take approximately 400 years to fully degrade in the sea.

Furthermore, when these plastics are strewn all over the environment and rain falls, it will cause leaching into our environment. When it percolates downwards into our groundwater, it will contaminate our clean water supply. Even if burning plastic was an option, it contributes to air pollution and could possibly turn into a secondary pollutant via chemical reactions (Obebe & Adamu, 2020).

Looks, Functionality or Both?

With the launch of the new Nalgene Sustain water bottle line, the company has prided itself in the idea of ‘refill not landfill’ — bringing this ideal one step further. Nalgene has created the first-ever water bottle made by repurposing recycled waste into reusable plastic bottles that did not compromise its looks. More often than not, most would assume that recycled goods will have some physical or functional compromise but Nalgene’s bottles function and look the same.

Nalgene’s Sustain bottle is produced via Eastman’s Tritan Renew technology via “chemical” or “molecular” recycling meaning that the recycled plastic waste is safely broken down into the most basic building blocks and rebuilt. Hence it becomes a new product that maintains its original properties (Insider, 2020).

Beyond repurposing plastic, Nalgene has a lifetime warranty on all Nalgene bottles (for all you Nalegne users I got you, use this link here to see how you can get a new one for free). This thus reduces plastic production for consumers and even discourages the need to consistently buy more plastic bottles. Interesting isn’t it, to see how a company is able turn old plastic into new reusable plastic bottles.

 

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