Plastic water bottles are the bane of our existence at The Dieline. As we examine the packaging industry through a sustainable lens, we are constantly bewildered at the mass amounts of waste these plastic bottles produce and the alarming rate at which they get consumed.

Cove is the latest bottled water startup brand challenging the market; at first glance, it looks like any ordinary bottled water brand. But the packaging gets made from a blend of PHA, a bio-based plastic that fully degrades when composted. “PHA is consumed for energy by a large variety of microorganisms in nature and is produced for Cove’s use through fermentation in a process that resembles the production of yogurt or beer,” says Alex Totterman, Cove founder and CEO. According to Cove, the bottle will take a maximum of five years to be broken down by microorganisms and as quickly as one month in industrial compost.