Reusable water bottles: The new fast fashion?

Business Daily

BBC

News, Business

4.4 • 796 Ratings

🗓️ 12 February 2025

⏱️ 17 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Reusable bottles are everywhere – on your desk at work, at the gym, on a day out, doing a job in the fight against single-use plastic. But if we have multiple versions of refillable water bottles, are they just becoming fast fashion?

The global, refillable water bottle industry is worth $10 billion and it is growing at a rate of about 5% a year. Several brands have become household names with international offices across continents.

But these types of bottles are energy-intensive. Research suggests manufacturing a single reusable bottle can produce more emissions than producing a single-use plastic version, but that it works out better for the environment once it has been used multiple times. We look at the enormous growth in refillable bottles, and how celebrities and influencers have driven sales.

Producer/presenter: Rick Kelsey

(Photo: A young woman drinks from a water bottle in Central Park, NYC. Credit: Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	There is a growing thirst for reusable water bottles, with the market expanding like never before.
0:09.3	It's become another status symbol. I mean, all you have to do is Google a Stanley Cup friend,
0:15.4	hydration station, like various different things and hashtags on TikTok.
0:21.6	Much is down to people being more environmentally conscious, but there is also fast fashion,
0:28.4	the desire to have the latest model like people do with a mobile phone.
0:33.8	We're really pushing for a global plastics treaty, very much supportive of that happening, because
0:39.5	we need to ambitiously reduce plastic production. But not everywhere in the world is seeing growth.
0:47.6	We're in Kenya where single-use plastic for water still dominates.
0:52.6	I have one where I'm seated.
0:55.5	That has become a culture in the country a lot.
0:59.9	Everybody you meet in the morning going to work has single-use plastic.
1:04.9	How did the big labels pull it off?
1:07.0	We'll speak to the brand experts to find out how music and film combined to blow the reusable bottle industry up.
1:14.3	The industry itself has managed to pull off a bit of a magic trick where they've surfed the wave of cultural trends really, really well.
1:26.3	And that has then fueled social proof. This is Business Daily
1:31.8	with Rick Kelsey looking at the frantic pace of growth and environmental concerns around refillable,
1:39.3	reusable water bottles.
1:47.7	I'm in the gym to kick things off today and I'm just looking around.
1:52.5	Nobody I can see here in London has a single-use plastic bottle.
1:58.5	Almost everyone's got a reusable, branded, stainless steel type water bottle.
2:00.6	It's often bright colours, actually.
2:05.4	There's one over there that looks like it's got gemstones around it.
	...

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