Water 3.0 receives Planet Hero Award

Greentech has won the second largest sponsorship prize and will receive 60,000 euros.

Wasser 3.0 has won the second largest sponsorship prize at the Zurich Group's Planet Hero Award and will receive 60,000 euros. The non-profit Greentech convinced the jury with its process for removing microplastics from water without filters. "Solutions, especially for dealing with microparticles already present in the cycle, are still quite rare. Water 3.0. offers a well-founded new approach to reducing microplastics, which results in enormous savings in water, energy and CO2," says Planet Hero jury member Katharina Reuter, explaining the decision. Björn Bohnhoff from the Zurich Insurance Group is taking on a project sponsorship for Wasser 3.0.

Wasser 3.0 started in 2012 as a university research project. The non-profit company was then founded in 2020. The process for removing microplastics is already being used in some municipal sewage treatment plants. The researchers add a hybrid silica gel to the contaminated water. The gel clumps together with the microplastics and other pollutants in the water. The company is researching ways to reuse the skimmed microplastics.

More than 100 individuals, universities, associations and non-profit organizations have applied for the Planet Hero Award. The prize is awarded by the Zurich Insurance Group to sustainable projects. The rrreefs association won first prize, while the "Deutschland forstet auf" project took third place. The jury awarded a special prize to the "Carbonara" initiative of the German Schreberjugend.