NextGen partners helping the Swedish island of Gotland overcome severe water challenges devised a unique collaboration and advertising campaign to demonstrate how effective wastewater reuse and treatment can be…
Bottling up the next big idea in sustainable water management in way consumers can engage with is a big task. So an innovative alliance between NextGen partner IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute, Nya Carnegie Brewery and Carlsberg Sweden combined to produce a focal point for the discussion – the country’s first beer made with recycled water.
The resulting ‘PU:REST’ beer has been proved to be a creative success, raising awareness about the value of safe and demonstrate that wastewater can be made drinkable.
Effectively translated as ‘crap beer’ with a pure play on words with ‘pu:rest’, IVL and partners have won a prestigious award for best business PR campaign from SPINN and international interest from Business Insider, Bloomberg and Forbes magazine.
But behind the beer and the buzz is technological innovation and application in response to serious sustainability issues.
In recent years, Gotland has suffered from acute water shortages on several occasions, negatively affecting tourism, small- scale industries, house building and other parts of the economy. The southern part of the island, Storsudret, is the especially exposed.
IVL-led test beds in Storsudret aim to make the area water self-sufficient – using exactly the same techniques that have made PU:REST such a well-received success. Their work consists of an integrated system based on small scale methods like rainwater harvesting from drainage ditches, automatic hatches in large ditches and artificial surface water dams, artificial infiltration for groundwater, construction of groundwater dams for subsurface water storage, wastewater reuse and climate neutral desalination based on solar energy.
Another critical part of the test bed is communication and engagement activities with local stakeholders such as farmers and citizens. Perfect opportunities to enjoy a refreshing beer as well as build a more sustainable future perhaps!