First Fully Biodegradable Water Bottle Takes To Grocery Shelves

Pages upon pages of climate change articles will tell you this: Plastic is NOT fantastic. It’s little wonder that inventors are racing to find alternatives that aren’t just planet-friendly but also affordable and feasible for long-term production.

At long last, the first-ever fully biodegradable “plastic” water bottle has reached shelves. A startup called Cove has been working on a sustainable counterpart for the disposable (and arguably indispensable) everyday item that’s been clogging up oceans. Now, the bottle has made its debut at Los Angeles high-end grocery store Erewhon, with potentially more locations on the way.

The Cove bottle is crafted from a blend of natural polymers called PHAs (short for polyhydroxyalkanoates), which are produced and consumed by microorganisms in all natural settings—from fresh water, to soil, and marine environments. The material breaks down without releasing toxic waste.

Essential to consumers is the fact that the bio-plastic looks and feels like the harmful material, but it’s “completely natural,” says the brand. Not to mention, the bottle sports a minimalist design that’s pleasing to the eye.

Each Cove bottle takes up to five years to disappear into the soil on its own, and as quickly as one month when broken down by industrial compost. 

Video via Cove

According to the company, the materials that make up the bottle are 100% sourced from North America. “We use minimal shipping, refrain from sourcing water from drought-stricken areas and grant employees full respect and generous benefits,” it explains in a press release.

Each bottle will set buyers back US$2.99—a pretty premium price for water, albeit reasonable for a first-in-market product.

Cove’s first factory can produce 20 million bottles per year. That being said, it intends to scale up its processes so that more bottles will arrive at a store near year. Ultimately, it hopes to create a groundbreaking solution that will wholly replace single-use plastics.

[via Dieline, Bloomberg, Cove / PR Newswire, images via Cove]