Cove’s Biodegradable Water Bottle Inches Closer to Market (But Don’t Expect Plastic Waste to Disappear Anytime Soon)

Aug 11, 2023

Is the end of the plastic water bottle finally in sight?

According to a story in Bloomberg, one startup's vision of delivering a fully biodegradable plastic alternative to the water bottle is inching closer to reality after years of development and delays.

Cove, a company that has raised $20 million since its founding in 2018, says it is close to finally shipping its bottle, a product made using fermented cooking oil. The California-based company says that oil, which is turned into a polymer called polyhydroxyalkanoates, or PHA, eventually dissolves in water or soil without leaving behind toxic waste or residue.

From Bloomberg:

"…the PHA pellets move to Cove's 25,000-square-foot factory, where they are sent through machinery to vacuum away moisture, sift out metal, and stretch, cut and mold the material into a hollow canister fit for water. A label is then printed directly onto each bottle ("Cove's plastic-free, renewable bottles"). The ink, made from algae, is meant to biodegrade, too. Water from a purification plant nearby is poured in. By Cove's estimates, its bottles will disintegrate in water and soil in under five years."

The progress towards a final, shippable product hasn't come quickly. The company not only struggled early on with finding the right material recipe that would provide a water bottle that could withstand freezing or high temperatures and survive drop tests, but has also taken some time to optimize the production of the bottle. After initially working with outsourced manufacturers, the company brought production in-house. You can see a little of the production facility at work in the video update from the company CEO Alex Totterman below:

According to the company, the bottles will cost about $2.99 a piece initially, which tells me that these are not intended to really replace the standard water bottle anytime soon (the cost of a traditional plastic water bottle costs well below that, with the material cost of the plastic and production coming in at 25 cents or below).

Still, the bottling industry has to start somewhere, and Cove is at least building infrastructure, materials and a process to create an alternative to plastic that could eventually see its price reduced over time. This is an achievement in itself, as many others have tried to bring biodegradable water bottles to market without much success. While Coca Cola has developed what it claims is an entirely plant-based bottle, they’ve yet to commercialize the product fully. Others, like Metabolix, shut down before they could ever find significant market traction.

In the meantime, I hope we’ll see more retailers, restaurants, and consumers embrace plastic alternatives, whether aluminum-canned or paper-boxed water. Airlines like Alaska (is there a venue where more single-use plastic is used than on flights?) have started to switch to boxed water, and I don't see why every food service venue doesn't as well.

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