Popular water brand For The Better Good has rebranded to Anew, as it works towards shifting attitudes within the packaging industry – an industry consuming the market with single-use plastic bottles. We sit down with Founder Jayden Klinac to talk about why the company decided to rebrand, the process, the challenges and the future.
Klinac first founded For The Better Good in 2016 as a sustainable product that focused on creating a circular economy with water bottles.
Made with renewable materials, For The Better Good has created a line of water bottles that are reusable, recyclable and made from plant-based materials.
So why the change to anew?
Klinac says the brands purpose to promote a low carbon, renewable, circular economy has not changed.
“We have introduced a new product, our plant-based reusable and recyclable bottle filled with Alkaline water, which we see as a crucial step towards building a reuse culture and true circular economy for packaging,” he says.
Now available in gas stations, cafes and more across the country, anew is a bottle of water that celebrates the reusable and recyclable experience and has a lighter footprint on the earth.
The idea for anew first came about as a reaction to the lack of composting and recycling infrastructure in New Zealand that For The Better Good was originally made for.
Read more: Idealog’s Most Innovative in Sustainability/Environmental: For the Better Good
“The moment I came up with our first bottle was in a petrol station. I was on a seven hour drive, didn’t have my reusable bottle and needed water, like all of us do. When I walked up to the fridge, I became frustrated. If I wanted to buy the water I needed, I had to buy it in a “disposable”, oil-based plastic bottle. There was no practical choice around it,” says Klinac.
“We know that people want to do good. We just need to provide them with the products and systems that allow them to.”
Klinac adds that anew is acknowledging the dilemma consumers face when they need to buy water on the go.
Unlike the rest of the market, anew is encouraging consumers to buy water in necessary situations and use the bottle for the long term instead of relying on the traditional recycling process.
“Our circular economy is based around using renewable resources to make products and packaging, using these for as long as possible through reuse, then recirculating the material through our wash system or recycling it into the same product it was before, but making it anew, here in New Zealand,” says Klinac.
With the new product, Klinac says there are more end-of-life options for the bottle suitable for the “myriad of different consumer behaviours we currently see”.
Consumer behaviour has been the focus for Klinac and anew, founded on the belief that it requires a combined effort to design the waste out of the system.
Anew bottles can be returned and made into 3D printer filaments or recycled and made is then remade into new bottles, all in New Zealand.
It can be kerbside recycled anywhere in the world that accepts number two plastics and can also go in the same stream as the oil-based plastics. They are dishwasher safe and can be reused for a long time.
The creation of anew has been Klinac’s focus for the last 12 months where they researched people’s behaviours, the material they needed to use and how to transition people towards reusable bottles.
“It made sense to use the most sustainable bottle we could. Designing it for reuse and having a local end of life option was important,” he says.
“People can fill the need of having water when they need it, but then keep the bottle, wash it when they feel it needs it and begin to build important habits for creating a reuse culture.”
Klinac says that despite selling alkaline water, Anew is “not a bottled water company” but a problem solving one that has no plans to create new beverages, instead helping others on circular economy solutions.
“We have some really exciting innovations in the pipeline. We are working on new material in collaboration with another New Zealand company, Plentyful, which we think will transform the packaging industry,” he says.
“We are also innovating more in the collection and systems space and have some exciting announcements and product releases coming early 2023.”
As a whole, Klinac says he doesn’t see any reason why New Zealand could not go 100 percent reusable in light of their new product.
“Now that we have developed these circular packaging options and have a growing nationwide collection system and local recycling options that sees products washed and reused, or made anew, we feel responsible to help other businesses go circular with their packaging and assist in shifting the entire industry here in New Zealand.”
