Water bottling is an enormous ecological problem that we care a lot about here at HealthyPage.
So naturally, any innovation that cuts back on that, or makes it easier for people to get the water they need, is going to get a vote of confidence from us.
Great news: it exists.
It’s called Ooho, and it’s a new, inexpensive, biodegradable way to contain water.
It was invented by Rodrigo Garcia Gonzalez, Guillaume Couche, and Pierre Paslier of London’s Skipping Rocks Lab.
How do they do it?
First, they freeze a ball of water. Then, they encase it in layers of a calcium chloride membrane. Then, they coat it in brown algae.
It’s based off of spherification, a process used with food to make it look round. Not only that, but this means that the coating is not only biodegradable. It’s edible, too.
If it sounds a little too good to be true, you’re not alone. But with widespread public support and a $22,500 sustainability award from the EU, we may be seeing more of these adorable little water blobs.
If it seems too weird to eat your water bottle, Paslier has some consolation. He told the Guardian: “At the end of the day you don’t have to eat it. But the edible part shows how natural it is. People are really enthusiastic about the fact that you can create a material for packaging matter that is so harmless that you can eat it.”
We hope to see more of these soon, since the U.S. alone uses 50 billion plastic bottles per year, wasting too much of our finite petroleum and water resources and giving nothing back.
Too impatient for these little beauties? You can make one yourself! Watch the simple DIY below!
Photo Copyright © 2014 Inhabitat/YouTube
