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Water Balls to Quench Thirst | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Ooho edible packaging can enclose other liquids such as soft drinks and juice. (Skipping Rocks Lab)


London – Do you feel thirsty? Now you can have an edible water ball …with no need for plastic materials or wastes.

US citizens alone throw over 38 billion plastic bottles every year. Even though the United States adopts advanced recycling programs, it consumes more than 17 million oil barrels annually to respond to the annual demand on bottled water.

A solution must be found for this problem. The Skipping Rocks Lab, sustainable packaging start-up, said it has found it: edible biodegradable bottles.

These bottles were revealed for the first time in 2014, when the new Ooho prototype started to go viral on the internet, but it was no more than a concept at the time.

This week however the company launched the first investment campaign to boost the production of Ooho. Apparently, the plastic bottle era is about to end.

This new outstanding technology is based on seaweed. To create the water balls, a block of ice is dipped in a solution of calcium chloride and brown algae, and a membrane forms around it. Then, the ice melts without affecting the membrane and leaves a jellied ball of water.

Although the Ooho product is edible, people do not have to eat it. The company said that the new bottle will be like fruit peels: they are safe and can serve as an organic fertilizer, especially since the seaweed-made membrane degrades in four to six weeks.

The good news for the fans of economy and environment is that the new product will cost less than a plastic water bottle. No information was given on the actual price of Ooho, but Skipping Rocks Lab has worked over the past two years on improving production and reducing the cost.

At this stage, the production of Ooho requires far less carbon dioxide and energy than the production of plastic bottles.

The trademark expects to find a wide market in athletes and music festival goers. The same technology can also work with energy drinks and other liquids.