Orlando, FL-based BottleHub LLC said it has the world’s first reusable water bottle kiosk and fill station. The novel vending machine is now shipping nationwide.
Conceived to help schools and businesses move away from single-use plastic bottles, BottleHub machines vend popular brands of reusable bottles. Customers can then fill them using the adjacent reverse osmosis water station.
“The growth of reusable water bottles has been meteoric,” observed BottleHub chief executive James Trotter.
The BottleHub project began last summer as a way to combat the closure of drinking fountains through the COVID-19 pandemic. “We were prototyping a contact-free drinking solution with UV-technology and thought, why not go one step further?” Trotter said.
The kiosk, equipped with a contactless payment system, vends empty reusable bottles that are then filled by a germ-killing water fill station. “Safety continues to be key for us. Everything is contactless for the ‘new normal’ including the payment area,” the BottleHub chief said.
Some 50 billion plastic water bottles are consumed annually, and less than 25% end up in the recycle bin, Trotter noted. He cited data estimating that by 2050 there could even be more plastic in the sea than fish.
When BottleHub kiosk is purchased, a portion of the proceeds is donated to 1% for the Planet, where funds are redistributed to organizations whose mission is to end single-use plastic bottle usage.
The company is looking to add distributors in select U.S. markets.
