While many people are hoping to create initiatives to save water few are as creative and simple one local VCU Brandcenter student. Yelena Sophia, who served as an art director on the project and now works for TBWAMedia Arts Lab, and her team came up with a unique idea.



While many people are hoping to create initiatives to save water few are as creative and simple one local VCU Brandcenter student. Yelena Sophia, who served as an art director on the project and now works for TBWAMedia Arts Lab, and her team came up with a unique idea.

They got together with Dasani, Coke’s water brand, for a product innovation: a bottle cap that preserves water.

What they are simply calling the “faucet cap,” “could potentially save up to 7 billion gallons of water in one year, saving households roughly $20 million in water and sewage bills and nearly $70 million in energy costs to heat water” as stated on their website, capthetap.com.

The cap would allow for homes to use about 33% less water, using about 1.5 gallons per minute versus the normal 2.2 gallons’ flow rate.

Although aerators are not a new idea, the accessibility and awareness of the caps makes for ease of use and offers conversation to actually make a change. Sophia said in an interview with ADWEEK, “With ‘Cap the Tap,’ we’re proposing a solution that makes it accessible, actionable and achievable to conserve.”

They have a program lined up so after you have collected 30 caps, you can trade them in for a permanent aerator.

And they’re hoping to see some real life application of the product in places like drought-stricken California.

The Golden state has long been plagued by drought and it is progressively getting worse – the last time it was this bad was when the roman Empire finally separated. A drought map of California shows that it was abnormally dry in 2011 and quickly grew to the highest level of dryness, exceptional drought, in 2015.



Image via Business Insider

The team hopes to influence more conversation using social media. Pitting the different California counties against each other in a friendly competition to see who can save the most water. The results would be tracked online and twitter will be used as the battleground.

The product won ADWEEK’s Student Isaac Award for design. The Brandcenter team consisted of is Greg Donnelly, Strategist, Mikaila Weaver, Experience Designer, Shannon Smith, Art Director, and Reinald Wright Creative Technologist.