Conservation | January 8, 2019

FloWater raises $15 million to reduce single-use bottled water

Jessica Pothering
ImpactAlpha Editor

Jessica Pothering

ImpactAlpha, January 8 – Burlingame, Calif.-based FloWater makes water bottle filling stations for schools, gyms, hotels and offices. The firm’s mission is to offer an environmentally-friendly alternative to single-use plastic water bottles.

The world produces a million single-use plastic bottles per minute, which are contributing to a waste crisis that is quite literally choking ocean ecosystems.

FloWater aims to reduce the number of plastic bottles consumed and to minimize the CO2 and chemical footprint of the consumer water industry. The company has refilling stations in almost all 50 states and serves corporate customers like Google, Airbnb and Red Bull, TechCrunch reports.

Swedish water purification company Bluewater led the three-year-old company’s $15 million funding round.

A host of other companies and investors are devising ways to curb the world’s plastic problem. Closed Loop Partners has backed companies like plastic upcycling companies IntegriCo and GreenMantra and TemperPack, a maker of plastic packaging alternatives. PepsiCo Foundation is anchoring a new investment fund from Closed Loop spin-off Circulate Capital to back waste management and recycling ventures in Asia, where most of the ocean plastic comes from.

Others, meanwhile, are taking a creative approach to the plastic waste problem: Fashion designer Stella McCartney is working on a clothing line made from recycled ocean plastic, while Chilean company Bureo is upcycling ocean trash into skateboards.