Cannondale’s EF professional riders rolled out firstly of the Giro d’Italia with an all-new 100% Compostable Bottle. Cannondale calls the common-or-garden new team-only water bottles a small, however worthwhile step in giving biking a extra sustainable future, as nearly each bottle in each race is used just one time earlier than being discarded.

Did you understand how many water bottles an expert highway group burns by in a season?

Cannondale pro-only compostable water bottles

Cannondale says their mixed EF Schooling-EasyPost males & EF Schooling-Tibco-SVB ladies eat 34,000 bottles yearly. On the Tour de France alone, all the 22 groups mixed undergo a stunning 70,000 in simply three weeks. That comes out to an estimated 630,000 water bottles consumed within the professional peloton every year.

In order that’s why from Could, Cannondale is switching their groups to a brand new 100% Compostable Bottle as an alternative choice to single-use plastic bottles.

Wait, do professional riders actually solely use every bottle as soon as?

Cannondale confirms that the majority plastic water bottles utilized in professional racing are in truth single-use. Whilst you and I’ll clear our bottles after every use, getting a few years out of most bottles, execs most frequently now discard their empty bottles in a  specified waste zone by the facet of the highway (vs. the previous methodology of chucking them into the ditch anyplace within the current previous). Positive, some race workers comes by and picks them up lately, however because of hygiene issues, these used bottles blended from all riders within the race most frequently simply get landfilled on the finish of the day.

Tech particulars

OK, how a lot expertise is there actually in a water bottle? Right here, it primarily breaks all the way down to the fabric… and the way it breaks down higher. The brand new Cannondale Compostable Bottle is molded from an undisclosed plant-based materials. Its physique, bottle cap & chew valve are all produced with none polymer plasticizers, BPAs, or any heavy metals.

It isn’t in truth, the primary biodegradable water bottle we’ve seen. Elite – who make most of the peloton’s bidons – has made biodegradable polyethylene bottles just like the Jet from ethanol derived from sugar cane, and different bottles produced from cornstarch for years. Our mates at Chimpanzee diet have equipped us with these sugarcane Tacx Shiva Bio bottles for a number of years, once more a giant professional peloton provider – simply not of their bio model.

All are stated to decompose as rapidly as 3 months in an industrial composting cycle (licensed per European Compost Normal EN13242). Cannondale says in your house compost pile that will quantity to round 1 yr. Elite says a max of 5 years. However all of that may be a lot higher than the 100-1000 years a daily plastic bottle is claimed to take to completely break down.

Cannondale 100% Compostable Bottle restricted availability

These Cannondale bottles received’t be on the market although, at the least not within the close to future. Their objective is solely in decreasing the environmental impression of professional highway racing in the intervening time. Cannondale even says they’ll provide up their compostable bottle to your entire roster of World Tour groups for these seeking to reduce their impression from subsequent season on.

Not surprisingly, these bottles do look so much just like the Material Gripper bottles with a modified valve – additionally owned by the identical Biking Sports activities Group father or mother as Cannondale. Gripper bottles aren’t biodegradable or compostable now, however we wouldn’t be shocked to see an eco model obtainable sooner or later if Cannondale’s new bottles work out properly for the EF groups this season.

Cannondale.com