Wagenborg 1-year celebrations Implementation of Plastic Free @Sea solution

A year ago Royal Wagenborg started out with a pilot with bottle filling stations installed on board of six vessels. At this point, almost forty vessels are equipped with a bottle filling station.

Wagenborg Superintendent Izak van Rhijn explains:

“On board of our fleet we supplied bottled water for consumption. These bottles are made of single-use plastic. Every year we supplied more than 179.000 plastic bottles, which resulted in 2,8 tons of plastic waste. That does not suit a company with ambitious sustainability targets. So we were very glad Hatenboer-Water offered a practical and long-term alternative with their bottle filling station. These units are equipped with special filtration equipment. The result is tasty fresh cooled water perfectly fit for consumption.”

Gerard Zijlstra, Captain of the MV Rijnborg:

“A year ago a Hatenboer-Water bottle filling station was installed on board of our vessel. In particular, the Filipino crew was skeptical beforehand: they are not used to drinking water from the tap. In addition, after installation we found out that the water in the drinking water tank on board was not according to the standard. This happened because the ship had been stationary for a while. We needed to clean and test the system to solve the problem with the drinking water tank, so we temporarily switched back to bottled mineral water. Once the problem was fixed, we put the clean water tap into use and I can only conclude that the bottle filling station works well. Despite the initial reluctance of a part of the crew and the start-up problems, now the entire crew makes full use of it. It tastes just like the water from the tap in the Netherlands (acknowledged to have the highest water quality in the world). In addition, it saves a lot of space and lugging bottles of water. With the mandatory drinking water test twice a year, which comes with the system, we keep onboard water quality at the highest level: fit for human consumption, chilled and with a good taste.”