This year sees an exciting new initiative in the world of biodegradable products, with the world’s first edible water bottle coming into existence after years of development.
Design students at the Imperial College of London have revolutionised the water container and the result is ‘Ooho’ – a 100% edible water bottle with the potential to conquer the plastic waste epedemic forever.
Image courtesy of Rodrigo García González
The design team, led by student Rodrigo Garcia Gonzalez, created this bizarre innovation by dipping a frozen ball of water into calcium chloride – forming a gelatinous layer. The ball is reinforced by soaking in a brown algae extract solution, encapsulating the ice in a squishy outer membrane – and voila. A water container made for human consumption. Amazingly, the technique responsible for Ooho’s creation was inspired by Spanish culinary genius Ferran Adrià, who pioneered this process to add juice-filled pearls to bubble tea. This unusual origin story is a testament to the ground-breaking creative prowess in today’s practical design world.
As it stands, hundreds of thousands of tonnes in plastic bottles are sent to landfill by households each year, equivalent to almost £100m if they were recycled. At Eden Springs, we embrace our environmental responsibilities, promoting office water coolers in favour of excessive PET water bottle use. It’s clear, however, that Ooho means big things for the future of unnecessary plastic waste. Being able to rid the world of this particular waste problem would mean global progress on the environmental front – and this comes just 6 months after projections that the industry would reach $70bn in value by 2017. Eden Springs understands the need to eliminate any avoidable plastic waste, which is why our 95,000 strong customer base uses 79,000 of our environmentally-friendly water cooler bottles each year – compared with the 75 million individual litre bottles it would take to contain the same amount of water. With eco-conscious companies becoming greener than ever, and with innovations like Ooho on the horizon, the future appears to be bright on the environmental front. Ooho has already seen its share of backlash, however, with its aesthetic form being likened to jellyfish and even breast implants. But, although this miraculous new water container may not be pretty, it’s certainly an environmental game-changer. The product is still in the testing stages – so it might be some time before we’re seeing these innovative little containers ready for mass production – but there’s no doubt that Ooho is guaranteed to make its way into the next generation’s green office.
