The amount of water needed to make a plastic bottle is 6 to 7 times its content. This means, when we drink 1 litre of bottled water, we are actually consuming more than 7 litres of it. In 2021, it is estimated we will reach 583,300,000. Almost 20,000 bottles per second! The rest end up in landfills, groundwater, rivers and oceans, and consequently turn into microplastics that animals and humans end up ingesting.

Rethink.Refill. is an education program that empowers youth, prevents plastic pollution and delivers clean drinking water to schools worldwide.

The program provides water refilling stations and reusable bottles to teach students about plastic waste. They participate in a solution that eliminates single-use plastic bottles from the waste stream.

Rethink.Refill. offers a quantifiable way to track the amount of plastic pollution they prevent from entering the environment. They can track their school’s success and use it as a tool to encourage other members of their community to join in plastic pollution prevention. 

Schools can purchase additional reusable bottles for students and faculty at the program wholesale cost to enhance plastic pollution prevention. This is where Rethink.Refill. offers a social entrepreneurship component. Reusable bottles can be sold as a school fundraising tool. Profits can support the school, be donated to Rethink.Refill. or benefit another cause.

Education is part of Plastic Oceans’ mission to inform, inspire and incite action to solve plastic pollution.

Plastic Oceans works with schools worldwide to tailor and implement Rethink.Refill. Secondary companies (contractors) maintain the water refilling stations in schools where the program is up and running