Local entrepreneur Jason Dibble and his team at Boomerang Water believe they've created a sustainable solution to reducing the carbon footprint resulting from plastic bottle use.
Boomerang Water, founded in 2020, is a bottling and delivery service that sanitizes, fills and caps sustainable and reusable glass and aluminum bottles with ultra-pure water. The startup offers on-site bottling for commercial businesses like hotels, universities, office buildings, hospitals and mining camps, as well as subscription delivery options for small businesses, families and individuals.
Dibble, a U.S. Air Force veteran, said his time in Iraq and Afghanistan opened his eyes to the amount of plastic that is transported, thrown into landfills and burned. He went to work creating the small-batch bottling system, which allows users to close the loop on plastic waste.
"The fact that we transport water all over the place is moronic to me," he said. "That I have four tours under my belt and saw the proliferation of plastic everywhere being burnt is how this whole concept came around."
According to a recent report from the Environmental Protection Agency, the United States generated nearly 36 million tons of plastic in 2018. Of that, 26.9 million tons ended up in landfills, and only 3.1 million tons was recycled.
The Boomerang system takes six glass or aluminum bottles at a time and, in just a few seconds, power washes, sanitizes, fills and caps them. Boomerang's bottling system is currently being used by four companies that lease and operate the equipment in house. Dibble said the startup is projected to land in another six businesses by the end of the year.
"Without doing any marketing, we’re trying to be very consciously aware of where we’re going and who we’re tackling right now." he said. "It's just ramping up from there."
Dibble said the team, most of whom are also military veterans, is looking at a full expansion next year to bring product manufacturing in house. This, he said, will allow Boomerang to extend its services even further.
"You have these organizations talking a big game about reducing plastic use and many of them don't know how or don't know this tech is out there that can make them completely closed-loop," he said. "With the orders we have right now, we're at our bookend, so we're ramping up manufacturing now so we can market to those industries."
It offers glass and aluminum bottles, both of which were curated specifically for the Boomerang Water bottling system, Dibble said. The glass bottle was designed and manufactured in partnership with Owens Illinois. A newly released aluminum bottle was designed and manufactured by Ball Aluminum, a partnership that Dibble said took 18 months to secure.
"The design on this bottle is unbelievable, and now it’s all on trend; everyone knows it's going to reusability," he said. "The life of the bottles are thousands of reuses. Because it is aluminum it can dent and ding, but in a mining or manufacturing setting, you’re not going to care."
The startup recently raised a $1.5 million bridge round that it used to hire engineers, sales people and a chief marketing officer. Dibble said the company plans to begin raising a larger round in the coming months.
