Flaskk's smart dispenser lets you choose your preferred water and tracks the environmental benefits of every bottle avoided.
Alongside bags and packaging, plastic bottles are undoubtedly among the most widespread and environmentally damaging single-use plastic items. In Italy, bottled water consumption is among the highest in the world: according to estimates, each citizen drinks an average of between 208 and 248 litres per year. Translated into absolute figures, that means around 11 billion PET bottles are placed on the market every year. This is a uniquely Italian paradox: a country with one of Europe's finest drinking waters that continues to prefer bottled water, fuelling an industry that consumes precious resources and produces tonnes of waste. In this context, innovations capable of drastically reducing the use of single-use bottles are more than welcome — they are necessary. This is where Flaskk comes in, an Italian startup that has chosen to transform the everyday act of drinking water in the office or shared spaces into a smart, personalised and sustainable experience.
Flaskk installs smart microfiltered water dispensers that allow users to choose from several options: still, sparkling, flavoured. What makes it special is not only the quality of the water dispensed, but the degree of personalisation. Each user, through a dedicated app, can set their own consumption preferences: temperature, carbonation level, flavour. In addition, the water can be customised with natural flavours and functional blends developed with a team of nutritionists to promote concentration, energy and digestion. This makes the experience feel like having a bespoke bottle — without generating any waste.
Flaskk's strength lies in combining three aspects that are rarely found together: personal wellbeing, environmental sustainability and measurable impact. Hydration is a topic that is all too often underestimated. Having a dispenser always on hand, offering pleasant and personalised water, increases the likelihood that people will drink more throughout the working day. This improves concentration, productivity and overall health. Every glass of water dispensed by Flaskk represents one less plastic bottle produced, transported and disposed of — environmental benefits that Flaskk allows companies to quantify with precision, providing data to be included in their own sustainability reports.
In an office, on average, two plastic bottles per person are consumed each day. For a company with one hundred employees, that amounts to around 50,000 bottles a year. By installing a Flaskk dispenser, those bottles are never produced or thrown away. On a larger scale — major corporations, university campuses, public spaces — the reduction can reach hundreds of thousands or even millions of bottles saved. All of this also means lower emissions from transport and production, less space taken up in warehouses and recycling bins.
People often assume that sorting waste correctly is enough to solve the plastic problem. In reality, even in countries with the best collection systems, a significant proportion is never recovered. In Italy, in 2023, only 67 per cent of plastic packaging was recycled or recovered. This means that around 7 billion bottles end up in undifferentiated waste or, worse, dispersed in the environment. Some reach landfill, others are incinerated, and a far from negligible quantity risks polluting rivers and seas, contributing to the problem of microplastics. Even when recycling does take place, the loop is not always closed in a genuine process of circular economy. This is because PET, even when correctly collected, does not always become new bottles: it is often downcycled — transformed into lower-quality products that, after a further lifecycle, will be disposed of regardless.
Excessive bottled water consumption is one of the many unresolved knots in the ecological transition: it is not enough to rely on recycling or hope for a spontaneous change in habits — practical, convenient and innovative alternatives are needed. In a country that produces billions of plastic bottles every year, the idea of a smart dispenser becomes an invitation to rethink our relationship with water, to transform it into a service that is closer to people's needs and less harmful to the planet. Looking ahead, solutions like these could extend to schools, hospitals, libraries, gyms and urban spaces: wherever there is a constant flow of people.
One of the most interesting aspects of Flaskk is precisely its ability to transform a simple gesture into a collective action of value. Water refilled at the dispenser ceases to be a product to buy and throw away, and becomes a sustainable service integrated into the workplace or community space. Companies that choose Flaskk also send a clear message: caring for people and the environment is not an optional extra, but a priority.
