Individual health is part of an amazingly interconnected system of personal, environmental, and social conditions. We sat down with Merijn Everaarts and Amer Jandali to talk about Dopper, a company that is working to strengthen each pillar of that system through drinking water.
Highlights From The Interview With Dopper
Dopper sells sustainable water bottles, raises awareness about plastic waste, and works to increase access to drinking water throughout the world. Here’s what they have to say about their work.
On The Problem Of Plastic And The Founding Of Dopper – Merijn Everaarts
Millions of kilograms of plastic end up in the ocean every year. Eventually it sinks and biodegrades into a kind of soup. Sea life then injests tiny particles and eventually, we end up with it as plastic in our seafood. Everybody agreed with me that we should be doing something, but that didn’t necessarily lead to action. What we needed was a vehicle to tell the story.
As we thought about it, nobody said we should drink from a glass every day. But that would do a lot because so many people routinely buy water in a disposable plastic bottle. So I got the idea to create a reusable water bottle that also told the story of what we wanted to change.
On Access To Safe Drinking Water For All – Merijn Everaarts
I wanted to close the loop. We don’t need disposable water bottles if we all have access to clean water. You can fill up from the tap. There are many places that have sources of fresh water, but no access. This can be a real problem. You’ll even see corporations taking water away in order to sell it in bottles. That water belongs to the people living there.
On Dopper As A Social Enterprise – Amer Jandali
I love looking at macro-trends and one that we are seeing more and more of is a marriage between the non-profit and the corporate worlds. People want to see what social values attach to a product or service. I think as time goes on, that trend is only going to grow more.
It’s About Making The Connections
As Dopper makes clear, good habits for yourself are often good for the environment and for the world. Look for those connections in your own life, and for the social enterprises nearby that can help you.