A KEIGHLEY man has co-founded a company designed to help people lead healthier lives while cutting down on damage to the environment.

Nick Hird, of Westburn Avenue, is one of the founders of ViDrate, a flavoured health drink containing added vitamins and electrolytes but no sugar.

He said he and business partner Rob Bennett-Baggs are seeking support to ensure people consuming the drink can do so using a fully biodegradable sachet.

He said: “We’re running an online Kickstarter campaign to help us launch a fully compostable drink sachet – at present this doesn’t exist anywhere in the world.

“The vision behind ViDrate is to help people consume more water – without the addition of sugar or artificial ingredients.

“And we want to help people dramatically reduce their impact on the environment, cutting both CO2 emissions and the billions of tonnes of single use plastic waste from ready-to-drink products.

“Over 16 million plastic bottles don’t get recycled each day.

“At present, switching just one ready-to-drink bottled produce each day to our smart sachet in a reusable bottle would see each person saving about 11kg of single use plastic waste per year.

“I’ve lived my whole life in Keighley – where the concept for this product was developed.

“We already have businesses in Keighley reducing single use plastic and encouraging healthier choices with my product.

“We’re giving assemblies to local schools on the importance of hydration and environmental issues.

“Our Kickstarter campaign is set to see us achieve £11,000, which will go towards finishing the development of the first ever fully compostable sachet. This will return to the earth within about six months – the same way an orange peel would.”

The online campaign is accessible at: kickstarter.com/projects/vidrate/removing-plastic-from-the-soft-drinks-world-with-e