The eco bottled water company from vegan celeb, rapper, singer, songwriter, actor, and entrepreneur Jaden Smith has committed to delivering an ongoing supply of its spring water to Flint schools until the contaminated water crisis in the Michigan town has been corrected.
JUST, founded by Jaden and his father, the actor and rapper Will Smith, in 2015, has already donated close to 10,000 bottles of water to Flint schools in the wake of the ongoing water contamination crisis.
“This just makes sense for us to do,” JUST CEO Ira Laufer told MLive. “After reading more about [Flint’s] challenges and the mayor objecting to pulling bottled water from the schools, we thought, ‘Let’s help these kids.’”
Smith, a kid himself at age 19, has been outspoken about environmental issues in recent years. JUST was born out of his commitment to bring a healthy and environmentally responsible spin to the booming $7 billion bottled water market in the U.S.
“I want to create a bottle of water that is made from renewable resources, that is not made from plastic, that you don’t need fracking, that you don’t need petroleum, that you don’t need to go to war for this bottle of water,” he said in 2016 at a Variety Power of Young Hollywood event.
His efforts to support environmental and community efforts also led him to develop a line of vegetarian burgers in a collaboration with Umami Burger and the vegan Impossible Burger last year.
“I feel like the younger generations do care more about the planet than the other generations,” he told Buzzfeed last month. “There’s more information coming out on a daily basis about the effect that climate change has on all of us.”
JUST says it will continue to donate its bottled water to Flint schools as long as necessary. The water bottles are made up of more than 80 percent plant-based materials and are biodegradable. The water is sourced from Glen Falls, New York.
“We don’t pump water and go,” the company notes on its website. “We pay fairly for the water we use – 6x the municipal rate. And we only bottle excess water the city wouldn’t otherwise need. The city then uses the revenue to make needed repairs to an aging water infrastructure system.”
