Kanpai and Cheers for the Environment

Summer is here! Temperatures are rising and any physical activity quickly becomes an energy-sapping effort. In the hot season, it is therefore all the more important to drink enough. If you don't drink enough, you can quickly suffer the consequences of dehydration, especially in summer: headaches, lack of concentration, fatigue and malaise. With the increased fluid intake, however, the consumption of drinking containers often also increases. Our Japanese colleagues show how the increased need for fluids and the requirements of sustainability can be met at the same time.

As a measure to protect the environment and save resources, our local colleagues have launched a campaign that revolves around drinking. It's called "My bottle, my cup" and during the summer months from July to September it aims to encourage employees to use as few disposable paper or cardboard cups as possible and reusable cups instead. To this end, the consumption of paper cups will be monitored and tracked during the three months mentioned. The monitoring here creates awareness for employees who may not have thought about how many paper cups they consume every day before. By comparing figures, employees are encouraged to use reusable cups.

The campaign launched in 2020 and originally stems from the employee-driven initiative and environmental campaign "ECO Water Action 2021" in cooperation a German company that mainly manufactures water filters. In this campaign, it distributed water filters to employees. Approximately two thirds of the employees participated in 2020. The goal of this campaign was clear: to reduce the consumption of disposable cups and bottles by getting people used to reusable drinking containers. The summer months were chosen as the time for the campaign because that is precisely when the consumption of disposable cups and bottles is particularly high due to the heat.

The Japanese colleagues taking part this year are enthusiastic and convinced: "The campaign not only raises awareness of our own consumption and contribution to environmental protection, but also helps to save resources and costs," explains Sachi Murakami, Head of Corporate Communications in Japan. And it's good for my health, too: "Since I have my own bottle and cup, I drink a lot more water or tea."

The reusable system works smoothly: also at LANXESS headquarters in Cologne. A reusable system has been used here for years. There are enough glasses, cups and carafes in every department that are washed daily after use. So no one has to worry about hygiene or wasting plastic and cardboard.

What do we achieve with this?
We avoid more plastic waste, because unfortunately there is already enough of it. Every year, around 9.6 billion single-use plastic bottles are consumed - in Germany alone. To put that in perspective, that's 1.09 million water bottles every hour and 26.3 million every day. A 500ml bottle has an environmental footprint of about 82.8 grams of CO2. So if you switch from bottled water to tap water, you are doing an enormous amount of good for the environment.