KEEGO AND SUSTAINABILITY. WE KEEP GOING.

The future is reusable

KEEGO is not a disposable bottle. The titanium layer with non-stick property inside makes it easy to clean. Unlike plastic, titanium has a closed surface. Therefore, no particles settle in the bottle, which can lead to mold growth. KEEGO can therefore be used much longer than conventional comparable plastic bottles, on average about 5 times as long! This also reduces the burden on the environment.

We close the loop

A recycling process has been specially developed to reuse old bottles - KEEGO Refresh. Although the KEEGO is not made of a mono-material, it can nevertheless be completely separated, recycled and returned to the cycle due to the different melting points of titanium and plastic. A resource-conserving and respectful approach to the environment is a priority for us.

Local production and short distances

Our bottles are produced and stored in Germany, our main market, in order to keep transport routes and emissions as short as possible.

Our mindset: buy less, but buy wisely and use the products for as long as possible.

Why do we use plastic in the outer shell?

The plastic on the outside makes the KEEGO much more robust and elastic, and therefore more functional and durable. Our standard KEEGO is super light (86g/750ml). Thus, the use of plastic is also very low. We also already work with recycled plastic in the outer shell.

And for all those who would like to delve a little deeper into the subject, a more detailed explanation from KEEGO founder Lukas Angst:

To talk about the future, I would first like to start with a short review.

The initial situation:

Plastic bottles have been widely used since the 1970s. In cycling, they represented a major advance over the earlier aluminum bottles with their cork closures. Better functionality was a clear driver of this change at the time. The plastic bottle was lighter, more durable, fit better in the bottle cage and - most importantly - you could drink faster thanks to its squeezability. These advantages over a metal bottle were so massive that the metal bottle disappeared from sports. 

Since then, plastic has made its "triumphal march" into most areas of our lives. Better functionality and better price - who can compete with that? The same goes for our favorite opponent: the plastic bottle. Today you can get a standard plastic sports bottle in your color and with your logo for just €0.50 each. A dream not only for every user but also for every marketer!

My personal experience

A little story about this: I remember when I was 10 years old, I received such a bottle from a Swedish floorball player after the final of the European Championship. The value of this bottle for me was about 100 times the production cost. I used it for many years and remember well the mold that formed and the disgusting taste it developed over time. My mother didn't dare throw it away.

In hindsight: she should have!

Thinking about my experience, it's no wonder, that at every Tour de France about 30,000 bottles are thrown away for the fans to (hopefully!) collect. There is no other fan item that even comes close to that number.

At KEEGO, I have looked in depth at the disadvantages of plastic sports bottles. The 3 big ones are: Taste - Health - and Cleaning. Reason enough to invest in alternative solutions.

With the start of the development, I have been looking more and more into the topic of sustainability of products. And I have to say, the many aspects that have an influence on the circular economy and the sustainability of products are not easy to understand. From raw materials, transport, production (and the energy source for it), lifespan to collection and recycling, there are many steps to consider. Not all of them are easy to measure and compare.

Today:

KEEGO is made for use in sports, where crushability, low weight and robustness are essential factors. In many areas, for example in cycling races, in confined spaces and one behind the other, glass bottles or metal bottles are therefore often not an alternative because the risk of injury for the group is too great if one of the bottles should fall to the ground. Therefore, we compare ourselves with those bottles that offer similar functionality in these aspects. These are made of plastic - especially LDPE, HDPE, PP and PET.

In recent years, the collection and recycling of PET has developed massively. We hope that this will also happen for other plastics. However, PET bottles are designed for one-time use. With long-term use, they unfortunately quickly become thin and fragile.

So here's a quick trip to disposable packaging - to put this in perspective: Disposable packaging is by far the bigger problem.

95% of plastic packaging material is thrown away after a short initial use. This is by far our biggest problem. Please read more about this at the EllenMacarthur Foundation. Even in countries that have introduced collection systems for plastic packaging other than PET, only a small proportion is recycled as we would like. In Germany, for example, of all the plastic packaging that ended up in the yellow bin in 2019, only 47% was recycled into new products or raw materials. The rest ended up in incineration (Source:Federal Environment Agency)

When recycling food packaging, the difficulty is that you have to have a precise control of what all was contained in the recycled material. This means all kinds of plastics, dyes, additives, labels, closures, etc. Sometimes thermal recycling is simply the more efficient solution. Countries and institutions are continuously improving separation and recycling procedures, but there is still a long way to go.

But now for the good news: By far the biggest impact on a product's footprint is its useful life - how long we use it. That's why the EllenMacarthur Foundation has developed the guiding principles "Reduce, Recycle, Reuse ". And these are the guiding principles we follow at KEEGO.

We want to help reduce consumption (buy better products, buy less), recycle (use materials and processes that enable recycling) and reuse (make products that last longer and can be reused).

Since our start, we have improved aspects of the bottle with each production run so that it lasts longer AND works better. Because we also believe that a product will only be used for a long time if it works first class and doesn't make you want to buy something new. 

For us, the most important aspects are functionality:

- Pure taste

- No unwanted substances and microplastics in the water

- Easy cleaning

- Low weight

- squeezability

 

Today, 99% of reusable sports bottles are made of PE or PP plastic. As mentioned above, this is a very cheap solution.

The ecological footprint of a product is largely determined by its lifespan - how long it is used before it is thrown away or collected. Mother Nature would prefer us to use our bottles for many years. In stark contrast, studies show that it would be better for our bodies not to use them conventional plastic bottles for too long (keyword: microplastics) Read more here. 

These problems can be easily solved with KEEGO. The easy cleaning of the titanium of the KEEGO bottle also helps to prevent mould, which also contributes to longevity.

Future aspirations:

Even the best bottle comes to the end of its life at some point.

No bottle is entirely safe from mould and a heavily used exterior may lose its appeal to some of us (not to us. Scars show personality). There are currently collections for PE and PP bottles in many countries, which can also be used for KEEGO bottles that are being retired. But unfortunately, large parts of these collections end up in thermal recycling.

Not only do we offer a better alternative to plastic bottles, but we also know that we can do even better when it comes to collection and recycling. That's why we have developed the KEEGO Refresh programme. With which we want to take matters into our own hands and ensure that old KEEGOs are turned into new ones.

But this is not enough, because the carbon footprint is determined by a long list of factors. We regularly reassess the following points and strive to meet them. Even if we are not there yet, we keep going.

Here is a brief overview of our future goals:

• KEEGO becomes the new standard for sports bottles.
• Old KEEGOs can be returned for recycling in numerous shops and directly to us (see KEEGO Refresh).
• 100% of the collected old KEEGOs are recycled and made into new products.
• In the future, we would like to focus even more on recycled and sustainable materials.
• We are currently working on keeping all our transport routes as short as possible and bundling all production steps under one roof in Germany. 
• We try to keep production rejects as low as possible and put them back into the cycle in a sensible way.
• Instead of discount battles, we take our corporate social responsibility seriously and use Black Friday, for example, as an occasion for a Clean Water Weekend, where 20% of all proceeds were donated directly to the PURE WATER FOR THE WORLD FOUNDATION.

Keep going

Luke for KEEGO