SOULBOTTLES

Weekly Excerpts #7: 15/02/2019

We have 4 weeks to go before the book launch of our guide. We want you to know exactly what to expect from the book and to get to know the amazing people behind this project! Every week you will be able to check in on our website in order to find a new essay, article, artist or business from the guide.

This week’s excerpt is about the Berlin based purpose company soulbottles written by Kevin Grünstein who served as an editor of our upcoming guide.

soulbottles produce glass bottles which are 100% free of plastic, produced carbon-neutrally, and they support clean water projects. All of soulbottles’ motives share one message: drink pure water without the micro plastic that gradually disolves into water from the plastic packaging enveloping it.

About soulbottles: 

No more plastic bottles, just an all-natural glass bottle; a singular 470g soulbottle instead of 1.5kg of plastic waste per year per person. This is what makes soulbottles unique and it is the designed illustrations that carry this message to the public. They are the customised aesthetics that can transform people’s perception of bottle waste: you look at the artworks and you get a feeling of how cool ecological thinking can be.

For many years soulbottles has been working together with designers and artists from all over the world to create the motives printed on their drinking bottles. Art underlines the idea of why we need to present this average object in this way: the artworks tell us something about the intention of the product. They add additional meaning to the average object.

But it is not only the printing on the bottles that make them distinguishable. How we view a soulbottle is immediately shaped by the glass container itself. Just as the beautiful illustrations  catch your eye, so does the shape of the bottle itself.  It transforms water into an aesthetic object.

This is why soulbottles are not concerned about their market competitors. If the end goal is to reach an everyday life where no one sips on plastics anymore, more producers of glass drinking bottles only aid in transforming the public perception of drinking water. There is no competition in in the utopia soulbottles aims for, because there are no plastic bottles anymore, but just water.

Excerpt from the Guide:

Please note that all of the businesses featured in the Innovation section of the guide are presented in an interview format.

What is the problem targeted?

We all have seen enough plastic waste trashing our oceans, with at least 140 million tonnes of plastic. We want to put an end to it and we want clean water.

What is the solution, how does it work exactly?

We provide people with plastic-free products, such as our soulbottles, the soulcup (a refillable coffee-to-go-cup), and plastic-free straws. With every soulbottle sold, a 1€ donation goes

into a WASH project (water sanitation hygiene) led by Welthungerhilfe and Viva con Agua de St. Pauli e.V. Within October 2018, we will have donated half a million Euro to the project.

Who is the target audience?

People worldwide interested in sustainability, zero-waste and eco-design.

How many people can be reached?

We have almost 50,000 followers on social media.

How much plastic can be reduced?

The use of ONE soulbottle for two years prevents at least 3 kg of plastic trash and 35 kg of CO2.

How big is the scaling potential?

We try to produce as locally as possible to avoid long transits. For us, Made in Germany is more than just a label. Even though we supply internationally, we want to concentrate on local wholesale.

The market for sustainable reusable drinking bottles is always growing. We welcome market competitors as they show us that the public perception of drinking water and plastic bottles are changing. We are all working toward the same goal.

Where can we find you?

We have an online store and ship our products worldwide, and also supply retail stores.

Have you ever worked with artists before?
For many years we have been working together with designers and artists all over the world to create the artworks printed on our bottles. The artworks tell us something about the intention of the product and they add additional meaning and worth. Art is a universal language, it‘s totally connecting.

Every soulbottle design (40 in our collection at the moment) is made by an artist. For events we work with different artists too, such as Swaantje Güntzel (an artist who participated in TUS’ first open call), who we collaborated with for Millerntor Gallery 2017 and made a funfair vending machine filled with plastic bottles instead of plushies.

Find out more about soulbottles on their website.

Stay tuned for more Weekly Excerpts.