Being part of our daily lives, consuming water is trivial to us. Every year, about 89 billion plastic water bottles are sold all around the world. About 3,390,170 tons of plastic are wasted, dumped in oceans. As a matter of fact, while you’re reading this article the problem just got worse. What if there was a way to reduce the amount of pollution created by plastic water bottles?

It’s in London, at the Department of Innovation Design Engineering, that Rodrigo Garcia Gonzalez, and his team, created the Ooho. The water ball, named “Ooho”, is a biodegradable and natural membrane which can be entirely swallowed and digested, in the same way as drinking water. The membrane is made from brown algae and calcium chloride.

They made this edible water bottle so it can reduce the amount of wasted plastic when people use the traditional water bottles. Surprisingly, the Ooho bottle can be produced for a lower price than a flask. Each globule contains 250ml of water and costs US$ 0.02 to construct whereas each plastic water bottle contains 1L of water and costs US$ 2.50. If not eaten, this bubble can biodegrade within 4 to 6 weeks unlike plastic containers that take as much as 400 years to degrade.

Yet, it doesn’t just serve to drink water… This water ball can be colored and flavored, and can also be used for other liquids such as soft drinks, spirits and cosmetics. There are also CIYs (Cook it yourself) so you can make it all by yourself within 25 minutes. According to one of the tutorials, all you’ll need is one large bowl that holds four cups of water, plus one small bowl filled with tap water for rinsing, one small bowl filled with one cup of drinking water, a digital scale, a hand mixer, a mixing spoon, and a curved spoon or ladle. According to Karen Ahn, the process is called “spherification,” and it actually has culinary roots. It’s big in molecular gastronomy, where chefs take a liquid and form it into spheres which look and feel like caviar.

By doing these water balls, they planned to introduce them at major events such as marathons and music festivals. Rodrigo Garcia Gonzalez, Pierre Paslier, and Guillaume Couch won, in 2014, a Lexus Design Award for their invention, the “Ooho”.

(Written by Léa Villemure-Bénard,  Edited by Lorryann Faucher)