OneSTL Water initiative wants to change how St. Louis recycles

A line of canned drinking water wants to change how St. Louisans think about recycling.

Launched with the help of grants from the St. Louis-Jefferson Solid Waste Management District, Missouri Department of Natural Resources, and Brightside St. Louis, OneSTL Water is more than a thirst quencher. It’s a recycling tutorial in a can–a still water product marked with a scannable QR code that illustrates the recycling lifecycle of the product. OneSTL Water is part of a sustainability initiative designed to inform the public about the recycling process, and bridge the knowledge gap between what people think happens to recyclable products and what actually does.

Jon Falk, a contributor to the OneSTL regional sustainability effort, acknowledges that while people have good intentions about their recycling habits, they often make mistakes that lead to items getting thrown away instead.

“There’s often a disconnect between how people think recycling works and how it actually works,” Falk says. “Many assume that simply placing items into the bin is enough without realizing the importance of proper sorting and contamination avoidance.”

Falk, who began working with OneSTL in 2019, initially helped the group develop a campaign to encourage consumers to stop placing plastic grocery bags and wraps in recycling bins. Then, the pandemic arrived, causing new issues for local recycling processes, including labor shortages and a spike in load contamination rates. To help local residents correct their mistakes, OneSTL came up with the idea to tell the story of the whole process so that it might help St. Louisans make more informed choices about what—and where—to recycle.

“Most people only see their recycling bin, and we wanted them to see the recycling process from start to finish,” Falk says.

Serving OneSTL Water in an aluminum can is key. Most drinking water on the market comes in plastic bottles—only a small fraction of which can be recycled due to factors such as the presence of additives and pollutants and human contamination. The plastics that are recycled can go through the process only a few times before their quality degrades.

Aluminum, on the other hand, can be recycled indefinitely, with most recycled cans returning to shelves within two months of disposal.

OneSTL Water partnered with Urban Chestnut Brewing Company to produce its first run of cans last April using cans from the Metal Container Corporation in Arnold, Missouri, a subsidiary of Anheuser-Busch. The canned water is sourced from the City of St. Louis Water Division, and includes a touch of citric acid for flavor.

It is available for purchase at UCBC and the Missouri History Museum for $2 per can. There are hopes to expand distribution in the future.

“We want people to hold the can with the message in their hand, and we want them to think about their recycling habits,” Falk says. “Putting a can of OneSTL water in someone’s hands is a way to tell them the story of recycling.”