It may come as a surprise to some of us who swore against bottled water years ago, but water bottles still contribute massively to worldwide pollution and waste -- just take a look at the “water bottles thrown away” counter on the Hydros website. It just keeps going and going and going. According to Hydros, every year approximately 38 billion water bottles are thrown into landfills. The environmental damage of that amount of (unnecessary) waste is insurmountable.
Hydros is a social innovation project that aims to help to tackle the global water crisis by selling water bottles that are both reusable and have filtering capabilities. The bottle itself is made in America, BPA-free, comes in a variety of different colors and filters 20 ounces of water within 20 seconds. Founders of Hydros Aakash Mathur and Jay Parekh came up with the idea while at the University of Pennsylvania, which at first, started out as a business plan for the Dell Social Innovation Competition.
Hydros mixes for-profit methods with non-profit initiatives by funding sustainable water projects with proceeds from the bottle. Hydros currently donates $1 for every bottle sold to a project partnership located in Gundom, Cameroon with Engineers Without Borders USA. The project incorporates local human and natural resources so that it can have a long-lasting and sustainable impact on the local community itself. Hydros reinvests profits into filter technologies so that the future will hold more advanced water infrastructure sytems for not only the rich.
At the heart of the Hydros Bottle’s mission is to empower the almost 1 billion people worldwide who currently do not have access to potable water.
Contact Information:
Hydros Bottle Website
2006 Walnut Street FL 3
Philadelphia, PA 19103
United States
Additional Sources: Philadelphia Social Innovations Journal
Key Themes Behind This Trend
- Sustainable Water Solutions
- The trend of developing reusable water bottles with filtering capabilities presents an opportunity for disruptive innovation in the water industry.
- Social Innovation
- The rise of social innovation projects like Hydros highlights the potential for disruptive innovation in the non-profit sector of the business industry.
- Environmentally-friendly Products
- The increasing demand for environmentally-friendly products, such as reusable water bottles, presents a disruptive innovation opportunity in the consumer goods industry.
Where This Applies
- Water
- The water industry can explore disruptive innovation opportunities by developing innovative and sustainable solutions to tackle the global water crisis.
- Non-profit
- The non-profit sector can leverage disruptive innovation to create social impact by supporting and implementing projects like Hydros.
- Consumer Goods
- The consumer goods industry can capitalize on the rising demand for environmentally-friendly products by creating innovative solutions like reusable water bottles.
