Stop plastic soup with reusable water bottles

Retulp wants to ensure that plastic waste in nature and in the oceans is greatly reduced. This is because the plastic soup is still expanding. We believe that the first step is to make sure that less plastic is thrown away. Prevention is even better than recycling!

In our oceans and seas, more and more plastic waste is floating. The so-called 'plastic soup'. Weathering, sunlight and wave action cause this plastic to fall apart into small pieces. This leads to serious pollution. The oceans cover 72% of the earth's surface and are our main oxygen suppliers. For more than half of the world's population, the ocean is the main source of food.

Plastic does not decompose by biological means. Toxic substances are also released from plastic. All kinds of animals that live in or off the sea, even the tiny plankton, mistake plastic waste and microplastics for food. This is deadly for them. The often toxic waste also penetrates our food chain. The vast majority of this pollution comes from the land. Plastic waste that does not enter a waste management system, for example because it has not been thrown into a bin, finds its way to the sea through rivers and other waterways. Plastic waste on land is also very harmful to animals and nature.

Some facts:

• About 80% of the waste floating around in seas and oceans comes from land.
• Every day, gigantic amounts of plastic disappear into the oceans through streets, ditches, rivers and the sea.
• Worldwide, only 1% of all this plastic is recycled.
• About 50% of all plastic is thrown away immediately after use.
• In the five major ocean areas where all this plastic is concentrated, there is sometimes as much as 36x more plastic than plankton.
• A lot of litter can be found in parking lots, on the roadsides along highways and in recreational areas.
• Young people, road users and recreational users are major polluters.
• Some 36% of all consumer fish contain plastic.
• The plastic eventually enters our food chain through marine life and birds as well.
• About 1,000,000 seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals are killed each year by the plastic in our oceans.

The plastic water bottle is a major environmental pollutant.

Besides reuse, we want to encourage the use of tap water as a healthy, economical and environmentally friendly alternative to water packaged in plastic (disposable) bottles. Tap water is the cheapest thirst-quencher in the Netherlands and very healthy. The Dutch drinking water companies supply tap water of superior quality. When we make more use of tap water instead of bottled water, moving plastic water bottles from one country to other countries becomes unnecessary. When we all drink more tap water instead of bottled water, it saves an unnecessary accumulation of hundreds of disposable plastic water bottles every day.