Hydraloop is the big winner at the American tech and innovation fair CES!
The Dutch water-recycling system for both households and businesses came out on top at the American Consumer and Electronics Show 2020 in Las Vegas. During the award ceremony on 9 January, Hydraloop founders Arthur Valkieser and Sabine Stuiver received the main prize, the BEST OF THE BEST award. The company also won in the categories Best Startup and Best Sustainability Tech. These came in addition to previous accolades won by the Dutch start up – the Best of Innovation award for the best product in the category Sustainability, Eco-Design & Smart Energy.
What is Hydraloop?
Hydraloop is a household water recycling system that allows you to live very comfortably at home, even though water is becoming scarcer and more expensive.
You can use the recycled water from the shower, bath and washing machine for toilet flushing, the garden and washing machine. By means of this efficient use of water, you can still keep your rain shower in times of water scarcity. Hydraloop reduces your water use by 45 percent, so you can still live comfortably.
How did you come up with the idea to start this company?
It started with the realization that we do not use water sustainably. Every time you flush the toilet, many liters of clean drinking water are flushed away. We have a huge water problem in the world, including in the Netherlands, which will only increase due to a world population that continues to grow very steadily. In the Netherlands, the population is projected to grow by another one million in 15 years’ time and worldwide the population is expected to grow by 2 billion in 30 years’ time.
This means we have to come up with sustainable solutions to provide for an ever-increasing world population. Smarter use of water is one of the solutions I’m committed to, so we don’t have to sacrifice living comfort when water becomes increasingly scarce and expensive. Our product does just that by collecting and recycling water for showers, baths and washing machines which can then be used for toilet flushing, the garden and the washing machine.
Is there much competition in this area?
Yes and no. There are other companies that also have recycling systems but they need much more surface area and use filters that require a lot of maintenance and need to be cleaned every 3-4 months.
We use UV radiation, a bioreactor and other innovative methods to clean the water, a method that requires no maintenance. We are patented in several countries and our system complies with all international standards. Our innovative patented technology gives us an advantage over our competitors.
What are the biggest obstacles you face?
What we bring to the market in so innovative that people are not yet familiar with our product, making us sort of like missionaries. People have to change their thinking about how they want to deal with water.
If that succeeds, it will also be easier to market our product. In many countries, however, people already realize how precious water is and in many countries there are already water shortages. If we don’t handle water sustainably within a short period of time, these problems will accumulate. We want to contribute to the solution.
However, thanks to the CES tech fair in Las Vegas where we won an award, the awareness of our product has grown enormously. This recent publicity makes this obstacle less daunting.
What are you proud of?
I am very proud of the team we work with and of the fact that there is already a lot of interest worldwide. In addition, our product has been used in many countries for the last two years.
What is your goal for the next five years?
Our goal is that in five years’ time, decentralized water recycling will have become much more of a standard in every (new) home, but also in commercial buildings, such as sports clubs or schools for example. Hydraloop wants to gain as much market share as possible in this sector.
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