The Wottle is a challenge to the bottled spring water industry, with disposable plastic bottles often carrying water from faraway sources. It is obvious that carrying your own water bottle with tap water is better to the environment than buying spring water, but this fact clearly isn’t enough to persuade millions of consumers from buying bottled water. They think it tastes better (even if it doesn’t), is better for their health (even if it isn’t) and through careful brand marketing, bottled water makes people feel good about themselves.

The Wottle attempts to make tap water attractive through a clever brand partnership. It features designer Orla Kiely’s signature leaf design, to not only make the bottle beautiful, but to add value and encourage the bottle to be treasured and used for a long time. In addition to this it is marketed by Brita, the water filter the company, who are perfectly positioned to highlight the fact that tap water can be equally if not more pure than bottled water.

On top of this, they’ve branded the bottle itself to create a perception that this is something more than just an ordinary water bottle with the name Wottle being catchy and lovable.

Its critics will say that they have simply made an unremarkable water bottle from recycled plastic, with a designer print and a clever name, and technically they would be right, but by bringing a number of different sustainable design strategies together, they may actually be successful in encouraging some consumers to cut down on the bottled water consumption, which can only be a good thing.

The design wouldn’t appeal to everyone and the colour scheme chosen does make it look rather like an Ecover washing-up liquid bottle, but it is still a great example of what can be achieved with a little thought and will hopefully help stimulate the market for reusable bottles in the same way that we have recently seen designers help encourage use of reusable shopping bags.

Comment on this post to tell us what you think about the Brita Wottle.

Tom Greenwood is a brand consultant at Scamper Branding and creator of the sustainable design resource www.ESPDesign.org.