Where Your 1% Goes: How NuRich Funds River Cleanup

The River Project is funded by a simple, standing promise: at least 1% of every NuRich sale goes toward adopting and cleaning rivers, starting with the Mulberry River in Winder, Georgia. It is built into the brand rather than bolted on at checkout — you do not opt in, round up, or click a box. If you have wondered what the "gives back" part of NuRich actually means in practice, this is the mechanics of it: where the money comes from, why a percentage-of-sales model is different from a one-off gift, and how the bottle you carry does double duty. August is National Water Quality Month, which makes it a fitting time to spell out exactly how the funding works.

What "at least 1% of sales" actually means

A percentage-of-sales commitment ties the giving to the business itself. Every order contributes a slice toward the river work automatically, so the more the brand grows, the more goes to the rivers — without anyone having to organize a separate fundraiser or wait for a special campaign. That is the point of pledging a percentage of sales rather than a percentage of profit or a fixed annual check: it is transparent, it scales with the community that buys the bottles, and it does not depend on a good year to happen. You drinking from a refillable bottle instead of buying single-use plastic is what powers it.

Why a standing pledge beats a one-time donation

One-time donations are good, but they are a moment; a standing percentage is a system. River cleanup and protection are not solved in a single weekend — they need repeated effort, season after season, as new litter washes in and access points need clearing. Funding that shows up with every sale, all year, matches the shape of the problem better than a single headline gift. It also keeps the commitment honest and ongoing: it is not contingent on marketing timing, and it keeps the brand accountable to the same waterway over time rather than moving on to the next cause.

The prevention half: keeping plastic out of the water

Funding cleanup is one side of the River Project; preventing the mess is the other, and that is where your bottle comes in. Rivers are the main highway carrying land-based plastic to the sea — research mapping global plastic flows found that more than 1,000 rivers account for roughly 80% of riverine plastic emissions worldwide (Our World in Data, summarizing Meijer et al., 2021). And single-use bottles are a big share of that plastic, because even the most recyclable common bottle material does not get recycled very often: the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency put the recycling rate for PET bottles and jars at about 29%, meaning roughly seven in ten are landfilled, burned, or littered (EPA, Containers and Packaging: Product-Specific Data). Every refill of a reusable bottle is one less throwaway bottle with a chance of ending up in a storm drain and then a river.

How your everyday choice plugs in

This is the part you actually control. When you carry a durable, refillable bottle, two things happen at once: a small part of your purchase funds the cleanup work through the 1% commitment, and every time you refill instead of buying a disposable bottle, you cut the plastic that cleanup crews would otherwise have to fish out. The funding side and the prevention side reinforce each other, which is the whole design — the thing you were going to drink from anyway becomes both the donation engine and the waste-reduction habit.

The bottle behind the mission

The simplest way to be part of it is to pick a refillable bottle you like enough to actually use. A NuRich 32 oz Insulated Water Bottle ($29.99) covers most of a day on one fill, and a NuRich 18 oz Insulated Water Bottle ($14.99) is the grab-and-go size — and both put a slice of your purchase toward the river work. Browse the full lineup at the NuRich collection.

The bottom line

Where does your 1% go? Into adopting and cleaning rivers, starting with the Mulberry — funded automatically by every sale, all year, not by a one-time campaign. A percentage-of-sales pledge scales with the community and matches a problem that needs steady effort, and choosing a reusable bottle backs it up by keeping single-use plastic out of the water in the first place. Clean water, close to home, powered by the things you were going to drink from anyway.

Figures above are drawn from the linked public sources; details of the River Project reflect NuRich's current giving commitment (at least 1% of sales) and first adopted waterway. NuRich does not publish specific donation totals here.

Sources: Our World in Data, "Ocean plastics" (summarizing Meijer et al., Science Advances, 2021); U.S. EPA, "Containers and Packaging: Product-Specific Data".