Jaden Smith, left, and his father Will Smith have founded an eco-friendly bottled-water company called Just.

LOS ANGELES — Jaden Smith’s environmental consciousness was born when he was out surfing at about age 10. He saw plastic water bottles bobbing in the ocean beside him, and he was so upset by it that he told his parents.

Then he learned in school about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, those floating “islands” of garbage and plastic debris, and insisted that his family do something about it.

The result is Just, an eco-friendly bottled water company founded by Smith and his famous dad, Will Smith. The company makes its packaging from almost entirely renewable resources, including “plastic” derived from sugarcane.

“This was a company born out of a child’s love for the ocean,” Will Smith told The Associated Press during an interview with the father-son entertainment duo about their company’s new offering: flavored water. They established the company in 2015, but the elder Smith said he wanted to wait until it gained momentum on its own merits before revealing the brand had celebrity backing.

“We did not want this to be a celebrity brand,” he said. “We’re just about to launch our second product and we felt like there were enough people who already have accepted the brand and it wouldn’t look like celebrities trying to sell some water.”