Fun Innovations Friday: EV Charging Hub Promotes Use With Unique Rainwater Vending Machine
In a world-first, Bluewater, a leader in healthy and sustainable water purification and beverage solutions, has installed a rainwater harvesting and filtration system for drivers using a new EV charging station in the Scottish city of Dundee.
Opened on April 25, 2023, the charging hub features an on-site solar canopy that can provide power for both the EV charge points and the Bluewater system. Rainwater that falls on the canopy is collected and processed using multiple stages of advanced water filtration and purification technologies to create chilled and purified drinking water vended from the on-site Bluewater dispensers.
“The new EV Hub with Bluewater hydration solutions in Dundee is a game changer because it will provide clean water for the city’s residents and visitors for free while reducing pressure on municipal resources and helping to build greater water resilience,” said Bluewater founder and CEO Bengt Rittri, one of Sweden’s foremost environmental entrepreneurs.
Rittri added, “In the past, drivers went to a petrol station, filled up the car, and often at the same time ended up purchasing a beverage in a single-use plastic bottle. The Dundee project represents the future of the service station, in being not only zero-emission but also zero-single-use-plastic.”
Rittri believes the global problem of environmental pollution by plastics and chemicals can be fixed using human ingenuity, which is why he is building a purpose-driven beverage organization focused on innovating creative approaches to using water sustainably. Bluewater represents the world’s most sustainable drinking water solution that ends the need for environmentally damaging single-use plastic bottles, and their associated high-carbon production and transportation.
Bluewater noted that its purification solutions have been verified in independent testing to efficiently remove PFAS ‘forever chemicals’ from tap water, providing peace of mind to consumers by removing up to 99.99% of health-threatening microplastics and chemicals such as toxic PFAS from tap water. The tests were carried out by Bluewater and verified by the independent worldwide bio-analytical testing group Eurofins.
A study published in the journal Water Research and led by Johns Hopkins University researchers detected PFAS substances in 39 out of more than 100 bottled waters tested. And in 2022, a French study showed that 78% of French bottled mineral water tested by the environmental group Agir pour l’Environnnement contained microplastics.
The combination of low-carbon and sustainable technology solutions being deployed at the public EV charging hub resulted from a unique collaboration between Bluewater, Dundee City Council, and traffic technology group SWARCO. The hub is the latest installment of Dundee’s efforts to become the greenest city in Europe by investing in sustainable EV structures with 3.9 public EV charge points per square mile.
The Bluewater Rainwater harvesting system integrates rainwater storage, controls, pumps, and mains water backup and was developed in close partnership with GRAF, a developer of rainwater harvesting technologies.
The Bluewater system also includes an integrated digital signage solution with weatherproof 55-inch high-resolution video screens, allowing the EV charging hub operator to share information with users filling their reusable water bottles.
The media platform enables enhanced customer experience and the dissemination of high-value business and public service information, which can be used to give advice on how to avoid plastic and live a more sustainable lifestyle. The screens operate using a built-in secure and stable cloud-based digital signage software developed by Bluewater partner Visual Art. The platform gives users complete control of a digital fleet no matter how many screens or where in the world they are located.
