the ooho! edible water bubble gets set to replace plastic bottles

bottled water has a lot to answer for in terms of plastic waste, with americans alone throwing out around 35 billion plastic bottles per year. skipping rocks lab, the masterminds behind the ooho!, have long since been on a mission to change this. their edible water bottle prototype first made a splash in 2013, when designboom and LEXUS recieved it as an entry to the LEXUS DESIGN AWARD 2014 competition. now, the ooho! team are turning their invention into a reality, taking to crowdcube to fund the project and hitting their target of £400K within just a few days. the london-based sustainable packaging start-up want to transfer from simply selling their water bubbles from pop-ups to challenging plastic waste on a global scale, piloting their water bubbles at major sporting events in 2018.

the ooho! edible water bottle sets out to reduce plastic waste

ooho! is a bubble designed by skipping rocks lab that encircles drinking water within an edible membrane made from from a natural seaweed extract. if you don’t feel like eating it, the flexible, bubble-like packaging biodegrades in just 4-6 weeks, the same time as a piece of fruit. the membrane can be flavored and colored, and can also be used for other liquids such as soft drinks, spirits and cosmetics.

the flexible membrane is made from a seaweed extract

the team behind ooho! recognize that the consumption of non-renewable resources for single-use bottles and the amount of waste that they generate is profoundly unsustainable. skipping rocks lab has been founded by RCA and imprerial college london masters graduates in innovation design engineering. since the launch of their company, the team have spent the past years perfecting the technology behind their design, and developing an innovative manufacturing process. now, ooho! bubbles can be produced for a lower cost than plastic bottles.

the membrane can be colored and flavored

skipping rocks lab intend to pilot ooho! at UK events, such as the london marathon, and glastonbury, the UK’s most famous festival. with a huge 750,000 bottles of water being handed out at the marathon alone, it’s easy to see what an impact the biodegradable bubble will have on plastic waste. the team at skipping rocks lab—made up of chemists, engineers, designers and business advisors–are continuing to pioneer the use of seaweed in other packaging uses, with a mission to become the leading global producer of seaweed-based packaging.

ooho! edible packaging can enclose other liquids such as soft drinks and juice