Let’s talk metal! When we first started dreaming up Bivo, we knew that using stainless steel would be the way to go as the best alternative to plastic. Durable, recyclable, anti-corrosive, safe to drink out of, stainless steel was clearly the best option. And, importantly, stainless steel would keep our water tasting like pure water, just how we like it!

Starting out, we used virgin stainless steel for the bottle bases. While there are many environmental benefits of stainless steel, the process of producing virgin stainless steel can be energy intensive. 

Luckily, a perk of stainless steel is that it's infinitely recyclable. And since recycled stainless steel uses 10x less energy to produce than virgin stainless steel, we knew what we had to do.

So, with the help of our product development expert Peter, we took a big step to start using recycled stainless steel for our bottles. 

In 2023, we were excited to begin the transition over to using recycled stainless steel in our bottles, despite a slight cost increase.

Today, I want to answer some questions about Bivos and recycled stainless steel. Our product expert Peter was a huge help with this post, as were the many stainless steel production videos I watched like this one here!

-Keaton

What percentage of a Bivo bottle is from recycled stainless steel? 

Non-insulated (One & Duo) 100%

Insulated (Trio & Mini) 75%, the inner liner of the double-walled bottles needs to be virgin stainless steel. With a slight quality loss in the recycled stainless steel, we cannot use it for the very thin inner liner on our insulated bottles due to risks of process defects. This thin inner liner is how we keep the Bivo Trio and Trio Mini so light.

When did Bivo start using recycled stainless steel?

We started introducing recycled stainless steel to our Trios in Spring 2023. In the fall, we incorporated recycled stainless steel in our other three models as well. These bottles arrived in our warehouse in February 2024.

How does the cost of Bivos change with recycled stainless steel?

The cost to make Bivos increases by 16%, but we absorbed this cost on our end, so there’s no cost change for you all.

Does the quality of a Bivo bottle change when using recycled materials? 

Nope! Bottles made from recycled stainless steel should look, feel and act the same as bottles made from virgin stainless steel. Unless you are a metallurgist looking at them with a microscope, you will not be able to tell the difference.

Are Bivo bottles recyclable?

Absolutely! – The bottle body can go straight into your municipal recycling system, even bottles with a silicone exterior. Stainless steel is valuable to recycling facilities, so it’s worth it for them to recycle the bottles. Lids cannot be recycled unless at very high volumes (2k lbs) or through services like Terracycle which typically down cycle the material, same with the silicone components. 

If you have any other questions about our recycled stainless steel that we haven’t answered, please ask us in the comments!