In today’s fast-paced culture, our health and well-being often fall by the wayside. Carving out time to exercise and eat healthy foods can be a challenge, as can doing one of the most basic things for our survival and well-being: drinking water!
Most of us know how important it is to stay hydrated, being 65–75% water and all, but getting the recommended eight glasses in a day already jam-packed with work, school, and travel is easier said than done.
If our health isn’t incentive enough (chronic dehydration has been connected to brain fog and illness), the modern world has come up with ways to motivate us to stay on track. There are entire social media accounts dedicated to reminding us to sip and smartphone reminder apps that keep us accountable.
But like everything today, hydrating needs to be easy and convenient. Thus, there’s an emerging market for concentrated and powdered water “enhancers” that add flavor (helping you want to drink more), with the added benefits of vitamins, electrolytes, and alkalyzing agents that help us hydrate more efficiently by supporting absorption. Optimized water, if you will.
Developed for rapid, maximum intake for people who need it most (such as firefighters, military, athletes, even global communities with water scarcity), these water enhancers are intended to provide a balance of elements necessary for the body to replace what it loses during normal bodily functions, and then some.
Most powders or concentrates of this type are packaged in little sachets—small, single-use, plastic pouch-like items often used to package household goods, personal care items, and food products (think ketchup packets)—that afford them portability and ease of use.
Because they are so light and small, you can throw them in your bag for the gym, keep them in a desk drawer, and take them when you travel for on-the-go wellness anywhere.
This type of packaging makes it easy to integrate health and wellness into our lifestyles, however, they are not typically accepted in curbside recycling. The material used to make them is considered too low value to collect, and their small size would fall through the cracks at facilities.
Most single-use items that are not recycled are destined for landfills, putting them at risk of ending up in our oceans and waterways, but sachets are especially prone due to their light weight and buoyancy, polluting natural environments, being mistaken for food by wildlife, and breaking down into microplastics that find their way back to us in our food and water supplies.
The recycling system has a long way to catch up to the world’s demands for products and packaging that enhance busy lives, so businesses and brands are creating environmentally friendly solutions people can easily use. NOW Foods’ line of sugar-free Slender Sticks™ drink sticks are available in a variety of flavors, are vegan, low calorie, keto friendly, gluten free, and packaged in sachets that are nationally recyclable through TerraCycle. Just sign up for the program on TerraCycle.com, then collect, and ship using a pre-paid shipping label you can download from your account for free.
In our go-go-go existence, doing good for your body and for the planet don’t have to be mutually exclusive. Keeping an eye out for brands like NOW taking responsibility for their packaging is a good habit that can help you lighten your footprint in your quest for hydration, and inspire more health and wellness companies to clean up their act.