Soulbottles, a glass bottle company, advertises tap water – in this way promoting probably the most underrated resource ever.
Water is flowing through a network of 50,000 km long pipes into every corner of Switzerland. Although the quality of tap water has never been as good as now, the import of mineral water has still tripled in the last 10 years. Water out of plastic bottles is probably considered to be healthier and even more drinkable. That’s when Soulbottles comes into play: the two founders Georg Tarne and Paul Kupfer, both 24 years old, sell glass bottles, in which tap water can and – should be bottled, as they emphasize: “There are many reasons why we prefer drinking tap water than mineral water.”
Tap water is not only cheaper than mineral water, but also less contaminated, as the regulations for drinking water, flowing through our pipes, are often stricter than those for mineral water. Whereas plastic bottles harm the environment, drinking tap water is up to 1000 times more environmentally friendly as recently found in a study published by the Swiss fair consulting company esu-Services. Moreover, plastic bottles contain health-damaging plasticizers that can even cause cancer. Furthermore, Tarne and Kupfer are convinced that: “plastic bottles have simply no style.” The two of them met while working for a catering service. At that time Georg Tarne already had a rough idea of Soulbottles in his mind.
The bottles are made out of Italian glass, which makes them lighter than conventional glass bottles and should, thus, be better and easier to transport. In addition, you can order them with your customized design. However, one bottle costs 19 Euro – a high price for a simple bottle, in which tap water is filled in eventually.
Nevertheless, customers rather proved the founders to be right: the first production of 12,000 bottles was financed with the help of crowdfunding.
One Euro for each bottle sold is donated to drinking water projects. Tarne and Kupfer could even convince restaurants of their project Soulwater in Vienna and Berlin, where the duo live. These restaurants sell tap water to their customers, generating revenues which flow back into water projects as well.
www.soulbottles.com
www.startnext.de/soulbottles-and-soulwater
