It’s never over until it’s over.
For the best part of 15 years our sister company Hydrachill has pioneered ‘on the go access’ to mains fed drinking water, in the war on single use water bottle reduction.
The company has earned UK and global awards for its efforts, which include being the first to offer UK commuters free drinking water and blazing a trail in the University, sport and business sectors.
Some of the results have been astonishing. Hydrachill has machines in the field that have done millions of vends and most are incredibly, still going strong. Finding a used Hydrachill in the marketplace to rebrand would be a hens teeth search. They've never existed.
So when Hydrachill launched its latest generation of 2-in-1 bottle machines in 2023, with some stunning new features, none were more interested in the new model than long-standing customers. But what to do with the old which were still going strong?
The answer didn’t lie in the traditional scrap heap, its all about reuse and repurposing. Trading new for old gave Hydrachill the opportunity for refurbishing and rebranding, stripping down the returned machines and recovering them as new.
The result was the opportunity to offer schools a fantastic own-branded high quality water refilling machine with optional reusable bottle dispensing capability, at literally half price -with ‘as new’ warrantees.
Such has been the success that one school Ysgol Gyfun Glantaf in Cardiff began with one machine, repurposed from Sheffield University Sports, added a second and have now adopted a third this time recovered from Aberystwyth University.
The original Aberystwyth machine is first pictured alongside their shiny new generation Hydrachill. The second picture is its recovery into a YGG school unit, with the graphics designed by the pupils. Supplemented of course with Schoolbottle reusable water bottles. A perfect combination!
All this because waste was not an option Hydrachill Ltd wished to consider, simply not in their vocabulary. Just like the Schoolbottles that support them, there’s always another time and place for reuse.
Meantime watch out for Hydrachills new custom branded wall mounted refilling stations, set to shake school campuses to their refilling core. More on which anon.