September 15, 2024
Sometimes you know you’re in the right place at just the right time. So it was at an Auckland art and crafts market, when we spotted a modest stand which was manned by, and displaying the work of, Whangaparoa-based artist, David Bayer.
Every spring, we take a look at the merchandise we have available for our guests to purchase as a souvenir of their visit, and we start thinking about how we can add to, or improve the range on offer. For a while, water and water bottles had been on our mind.
While the number of our guests arriving for their tour carrying a reusable water bottle is undoubtedly on the rise, we still see a lot of plastic, single-use, bottles. We figured that if we made a reusable bottle both attractive, and not prohibitively expensive, we might be able to make a dent in the number of single-use bottles going out on our tours. According to a report from the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health, around 85% of plastic water bottles, which can take up to 1,000 years to degrade, end up in landfill, so a move to reuseable bottles is good for everyone.
We’d found a manufacturer that could produce the bottles and we worked out we could carbon offset both the manufacturing and shipping via our regular carbon measurement and offset partner, Ekos, who we work with every year on our journey to be carbon positive, offsetting 120% of our business’s carbon emissions. So now we needed a design for the bottles.
The work David had on his stand was striking. It was bright, fun and full of Kiwiana icons. We asked if he’d take on a custom design project and he confirmed he’d be keen. So we asked David to design individual images for our Waiheke and Kaikōura sites that would be both instantly recognisable to our clients and, when displayed as a piece of artwork, might inspire conversations with their friends.
The iterative process took about 6 weeks, but from the outset we could see, immediately, that David fully understood the brief and the eventual designs, after a couple of minor changes, fulfil all that we asked of him, and much more. Whether you zip at Waiheke or Kaikōura, you’ll immediately spot iconography from both locations in David’s art.
Our new super tough, 600ml, double-steel walled, vacuum water bottles, which are dishwasher safe and will keep your water cold for hours (or coffee hot!) will be available to buy from late October. You can fill them up, for free, at EcoZip. We’ve priced them at just NZ$20, so about the cost of 4 single use water bottles. Or you can pay $25 for one and we’ll use the extra 5 bucks to plant a native tree on your behalf.
If you’re keen to see more of David’s work, check out his website. His designs for EcoZip are also available as A4 and A3 prints, and a range of t-shirts too.
The same UN report, mentioned earlier, estimates that the waste pile from single use plastic water bottles is so gargantuan that it would be enough to fill a line of 40-ton trucks stretching from New York to Bangkok every year. Moving to reusable water bottles isn’t just good for our wallets, it’s good for the planet.
