Rallying against single-use plastic bottles with mymizu challenge

Many of us have become used to carrying our reusable water bottles around when we go out. It helps us avoid buying bottled water, thus reducing plastic consumption and waste generation. Still, there are times when you run out of water. Maybe it was a hot day, or you exercised more than usual, or simply because you drank a lot. In any case, you need to make a choice; to refill your bottle or not.

Getting dehydrated is not the best choice, so you will probably choose to refill. What would you do? Buy bottled water after all? Well, there is an alternative. The “mymizu” app can help you find a free water refill spot. And not just in your local city, but from 200 thousand locations around the world.

mymizu is a platform that helps people live sustainably by becoming less dependent on bottled water. With the mymizu app, users can find a nearby refill spot and get directions. Users can also add new spots through the app, not to mention business owners who provide free water refill spots. It also keeps track of how many plastic bottles and money you’ve saved and how much CO2 emission you’ve reduced by refilling your bottle.

Now, the mymizu platform has a new service for businesses and organizations like municipalities and schools. It’s a challenge to promote a sustainable lifestyle through a fun and straightforward competition. The rules are simple: divide people into groups and let the groups compete with one another. The app keeps track of how many times each member of the group saved plastic bottles within a certain period, and the team that saves the most plastic bottles during this period wins the challenge! The app shows each team’s progress on the dashboard, giving members incentive to save more. The mymizu challenge will also hold seminars and workshops to raise awareness of the necessity to change their lifestyle for a sustainable future.

LIXIL, a Japanese company that produces housing products, took on the mymizu challenge last October. More than 2,600 workers participated in reducing the consumption of single-use plastic bottles. As a result, during the one-month challenge, participants reduced 34 thousand plastic bottles, which equals two times the height of Mt. Fuji. LIXIL says the challenge was an innovative and amusing initiative to improve the workers’ understanding of SDGs and sustainability. The participants also gave a favorable impression of the challenge. Some say they’ve begun to think more about reducing plastic consumption in their daily life.

mymizu challenge is a simple, easy and attractive initiative that can be adopted in almost any organization without investment. Collaborating with schools should encourage youths, helping spread sustainable consumption between them. If schools or workplaces could adopt the challenges for residents to join, we could see a huge reduction in the consumption of single-use plastic bottles and possibly improvement in people’s awareness.