A NEW water purifying technology is to be rolled out first in Scotland to help businesses that rely on bottled water.
IF Technology has developed the tech to prevent a reliance on bottled water and improve access to safe drinking water worldwide.
The first business to use the tech created by the UK based company is Portsonachan Hotel & Lodges, located on Loch Awe in the West of Scotland.
Due to its heavily peated water supply, the hotel buys over 90,000 litres of bottled water each year, adding an additional £13,000 to its operating costs.
David Parker, owner of Portsonachan Hotel & Lodges, said: “Our water is currently a peaty brown colour which is met with various reactions from guests, ranging from amusement to horror.
“This is a problem that is replicated across many hospitality businesses and indeed homes around the West of Scotland.
“We’ve tried several different and more traditional purification methods over the years, including a £30,000 centralised system that has never worked.
“Unfortunately, even if it did work, we have 20 years of [residue from] peat that has built up in our pipes.
“Relying on bottled water has been our only solution up until now.
“As a responsible business, sustainability is core to our values but we also need reliable, crystal clear water.
“We’re proud to be the first hospitality business in Scotland to be introducing IF’s technology so that we can stop purchasing thousands of litres of bottled water each year.”
The device uses a miniature vapour compression distillation system that operates without consumable parts or added chemicals.
IF say the approach is environmentally friendly and can be operational in 45 minutes.
The device can also begin purifying water from previously untreatable water sources from anywhere in the world.
With many properties failing annual water quality tests, occupants and visitors have relied on bottled water for years which contributes to growing plastic waste.
In Scotland alone, approximately 24,000 properties are dependent on such solutions.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development predicts that, without urgent action, global plastic waste will nearly triple by 2060.
Of the 1.3bn plastic bottles bought daily around the world, nearly 45% end up in the ocean after a single use.
The discarded bottles then break down into microplastics that enter household water supplies.
Traditional water purifiers are often clogged by contaminants, deteriorating quickly and therefore stop working before typically ending up in a landfill.
Made with polymers, filters disposed of today will still be decomposing multiple generations into the future.
Duncan Peters, founder and CEO of technology company IF, said: “Access to safe drinking water is a global problem that is only getting harder.
“This is why accelerating the path to clean, reliable water is so incredibly important in our lifetime.
“Water is also becoming harder to purify: it’s estimated that 93% of the world’s piped water now contains some form of microplastics, hormones, pesticides or other heavy metals.
“Traditional purifiers are just not designed to solve these problems and as a result we’re turning more and more to environmentally damaging plastic bottles.
“Globally, we’re using one million bottles of water every minute and that’s because we don’t trust the water quality that we have.
“Around 80% of single use plastic ends up in landfill, or eventually in the ocean poisoning the earth and making the problem worse for the next generation.
“Far more people are starting to pay attention to what’s in their drinking water as we learn more about so-called forever chemicals and other contaminants.
“At IF, we want to see a future where you can turn on a tap anywhere in the world and know that you have crystal clear water that is free from pollutants.
“We’re starting that mission in Scotland where around 3.5% of the population currently rely on off grid water sources every day.
“Because our unique purification technology can clean water from previously untreatable sources, we are confident that we can make a significant and immediate impact on access to safe and reliable water supplies globally.”
IF carries out hundreds of tests a year through independent UKAS accredited water test laboratories.
This is while its team of experts from companies including Dyson and Sonos are working to introduce this technology anywhere in the world.
