About our mission and cooperation with charities

To tackle the plastic soup at its source and reduce disposable packaging, we inspire to use an attractive reusable alternatives. Retulp is a sustainable Social Enterprise and founded in 2014 to carry out this mission. We have set ourselves a goal for 2025: to avoid 20 million disposable plastic bottles per year and donate 20 million liters of drinking water to people in need. In doing so, we collaborate with a number of other charities:

World Wildlife Fund

As a business supporter of the WWF plastic free sea project, Retulp financially supports this mission. Read more

Club Kakatua

Together with Club Kakatua, Retulp will realize a trash barier in a river in Indonesia every year: Read more

Plastic Soup Surfer

Merijn Tinga, in his own great way, is fighting against disposable plastic. Here he hands over his book to our Coby. Continue reading

Made Blue Foundation

Over the past 8 years, Retulp has donated over 200,000,000 (!) gallons of clean drinking water to developing countries. Read more

Sea First Foundation

Founder Richard has been volunteering with SFF since 2015 and in addition Retulp occasionally donates products to this wonderful foundation. Read more

Regional cleanup efforts

Locally here in the Veluwe, we organize playful campaigns to combat litter and raise awareness. Read more

Clean oceans and drinking water for all

Retulp wants people to be environmentally aware and actively reduce single-use plastics and for everyone around the world to have access to safe drinking water. Our mission can be summed up in 2 words: Mission Indisposable. We are on a mission to make waste bins emptier. Recycling offers some solution, deposit is better but prevention is the real solution. Reuse, Reduce, Retulp: the future is reusable.

Why: We unfortunately still see a lot of plastic in the seas and on the beaches, which has many adverse effects on humans and animals. We see it as our duty to contribute to clean waters, for everyone. Reduce

How: We donate 1000 x clean drinking water per product sold to developing countries which also prevents a lot of disposable packaging. We also build trasher bariers in Bali to prevent waste from entering the ocean. Reuse

What: We want to prevent single use plastic in the Netherlands and our neighboring countries by offering sustainable and reusable drinking & lunchware that lasts a lifetime. Retulp

Placing water points in developing countries

Together with the Made Blue Foundation, we are making a lasting impact to combat water scarcity. Not only water pumps are realized, but we also invest in the education of local residents so that they themselves can contribute to the maintenance of the water points. This is done as sustainably as possible. These water points also prevent people from buying water in plastic bottles, so this in turn reduces the amount of plastic waste that ends up in the environment.

With each project, we look in advance at how to ensure that our impact is lasting. For example, with each project we provide a maintenance committee with members from the local community, provide training and information. This way we have lasting impact and our projects are also sustainable because they prevent people from buying water in disposable plastic bags or having to boil contaminated water on an open fire.

What can you do to reduce disposable plastic and stop the plastic soup?

Just like Retulp, please support one of the above great initiatives to do something against the vastly increasing mountain of waste plastic. You can also easily take action against disposable plastic yourself.

Unfortunately, many companies come up with sham solutions so they can continue with "business as usual. Read more

If we are to solve the plastic crisis, we must move away from the throwaway culture. Yet companies with plastic-shine solutions are perpetuating this culture. The real solution is packaging that is refillable or reusable. Recycling, bio plastics and paper instead of plastic are false solutions.

False Solution: Recycling

Companies and governments are pounding recycling into us as THE solution. Some of the plastic waste that citizens collect separately ends up in countries like Malaysia or - even within the EU - can end up in illegal landfills. There is hardly any recycling. Since China closed its gates to waste plastic imports in 2018, the problems around recycling have been piling up. The main causes: the amount of waste plastic continues to increase, there is too little recycling capacity and there are no controls on trade. Plastic therefore overwhelmingly disappears into landfills or the environment. Just because something is recyclable doesn't mean it will be recycled. More than 90% of all produced plastic is never recycled. When plastic does get recycled, it is usually "downcycled. It is continually transformed into a lower quality product until it ends up in an incinerator.

False Solution: Paper

McDonalds replacing its plastic straws with paper straws, clothing stores giving you a paper bag instead of a plastic bag; more and more companies are replacing their disposable plastic products with paper. There is not nearly enough recycled paper to meet the enormous demand. And so a huge amount of forest is cut down worldwide for the production of packaging, tissues and toilet paper. If companies start replacing their plastic packaging with paper, the pressure on our forests will increase even more.

False Solution: Bioplastic

Think of the crinkly bags around organic peppers that say it's compostable, or Coca-Cola's "plant bottle. But what exactly is bioplastic? Bioplastics are plastics made from natural raw materials, such as corn, while 'regular' plastic is made from oil. And some of those bioplastics are compostable. But even compostable bioplastics only break down under the right (industrial) conditions. In nature, bioplastics behave just like 'regular plastic'. A turtle chokes on it just the same.

So what should be done?

The underlying problem is our disposable culture. We use a plastic package for a few seconds, when it is made to last for hundreds of years. If we really want to solve this problem, we need to start looking differently at how we deliver and use products. Companies play a crucial role in this. They keep the disposable culture going by relying on the above-mentioned false solutions. While the real solution is at hand; packaging that is refillable or reusable.

As consumers, we can address this problem, tips:

Conserve: buy only what you really need.
Buy quality products with a very long lifespan.
Do not buy bottled spring water but drink tap water,
Use reusable water bottles, drinking mugs, plates and cutlery.
Bring your own shopping bag when you go shopping.
Do not use cosmetics that contain microbeads.
Don't leave litter lying around, help clean it up.
At local markets, you can buy products that is not packaged.

FOR YOURSELF - a handy reusable bottle or lunch bag

Retulp is a Dutch Social Enterprise that wants to tempt people with beautiful handy drinking & lunchware to stop using disposable cups, bottles and bags. By using Retulp cups and lunch bags you make sure that the huge mountain of plastic waste does not get any bigger. Lets just cancel single use plastic. Okay?

FOR ANOTHER - drinking water donation

When you purchase a Retulp bottle, you ensure that someone elsewhere drinks with you. Since 2015, Retulp has ensured that over 200 million liters of clean drinking water have been donated to people in Africa and Indonesia. Under the control of Aqua for All, the donations are invested in water projects run by: Amref Flying Doctors, The Red Cross, Simavi and World Vision.

FOR THE PLANET - no excuse for single use

Except for yourself or another person, our bottles are obviously for good the planet. The only way to really combat the ever increasing mountain of disposable bottles, cups and cans is to use your own refillable bottle. Prevention is much, much better than recycling. Retulp is Business Supporter of the World Wildlife Fund. With our support WWF is committed to a plastic-free sea.

The core values and faces of Retulp

We want to protect people and the environment from pollution by single-use plastics. To tackle the plastic soup at source and reduce single-use plastics, we inspire with attractive reusable alternatives. In our work we are guided by the following core values.

Transparent

Our plans, goals and mission are clear, measurable and visible to all.

Targeted

We achieve our goals by evaluating, improving and standardizing.

Innovative

We speak to industry peers and partners frequently, ensuring constant innovation.

Conserve

Buying quality products and avoiding waste is much, much better than recycling.

In the Guilty Plastic Pleasures, Retulpers confess which single-use plastic they still use that they know is an alternative. Retulp believes in a world without single-use plastic and offers alternatives, yet they are also sometimes 'guilty' of single-use plastic. It doesn't have to mean that using one sustainable alternative means living without plastic altogether. Take a small step in the right direction!