2023-06-20 16:44:47
We understood the criticism, say the brothers Tammo and Jort Wildschut. Full of bravura, they launched their Sea Water last fall: drinking water that they make from seawater using solar panels. But Albert Heijn took it off the shelves after just two weeks, after a storm of criticism about the packaging.
The half-litre packs, made of plasticized cardboard with a lick of aluminum, were anything but sustainable. In addition, good drinking water comes from the tap everywhere in the Netherlands. The Wildschut brothers say the latter themselves, but their message was snowed under by the criticism of the packaging.
Sea Water wants to show that it is easy and affordable to turn water from the ocean – the largest water source in the world – into drinking water by using renewable energy. In the Netherlands this does not necessarily seem necessary, but the installation of the company is small and the method can be applied in many places in the world, say the brothers.
Contact and coffee
“After the fuss about the packaging, we had contact and had coffee with several people who had criticism,” says youngest brother Jort. “Zwerfinator Dirk Groot came to see our treatment plant in IJmuiden. That gave us new insights.”
Sea Water is now available in cans, which are easily recyclable and, thanks to the introduction of a deposit from 1 April, also return to the producer better than before. Soon they will be back in the Albert Heijn. “We need the largest supermarket in the country for our story,” says youngest brother Jort. “Hopefully, the conversation will now be about water scarcity and the various solutions for it.”
Groot responds on LinkedIn with approval: ‘It remains packaged water, you can find all sorts of things about it. So do I,” he wrote. ‘But in terms of litter, plastic pollution and recycling, this is of course much better.’ The Wildschut brothers have learned their lessons and taken a step in the right direction, he concludes. To add subtly to that Albert Heijn kept ‘this little one’ off the shelves, but in the meantime continued to sell the plasticized drink cartons of the large Riedel.
Pilot installation by the brothers Jort and Tammo Wildschut, which turns salt water into fresh water. Image Olaf Kraak
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Stray scout Dirk Groot strongly criticizes the coverage of Sea Water, that extracts water from the North Sea and sells it in packs as drinking water. Not sustainable at all, he says.
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