Ooho: The Edible Water Bottle!

The Ooho

Today, we discovered something incredible - some students from Imperial College, London managed to develop an edible plastic water "bottle" that might actually be able to rid the world of excess plastic waste.

If taken further, this bottle that looks surprisingly like a jellyfish could put an end to the bottled water industry. The packaging is  easy and cheap to make, strong, hygienic and biodegradable, making it a great choice for consumers.

San Francisco's Bottle Ban

Earlier this year, Concord in Massachusetts became the first city in the U.S. to institute a citywide ban on plastic water bottles. However, it only has a population of about 17000, so the ban was not much of a challenge. Now, San Francisco has also created a ban on the bottles, which is set to be incredibly strict.

The ban would extends legislation passed in 2007 that forbids the use of city funds to purchase bottled water, and would make it illegal to sell bottled water of 21 fluid ounces or less on city property or food trucks, at large events, or in parks. If passed, the law would move San Francisco further towards its goal of producing zero net waste by 2020.

Interview with Ban the Bottle

We were incredibly fortunate to contact Ban the Bottle, a non-profit organisation which is devoted to banning plastic bottles. We have asked some questions which we hope will provide an insight into their work as well as show you how important it is to ban bottled water. You may have heard about the recent San Francisco bottled water ban. We have asked about that as well, and their answers were incredibly insightful and helpful. The answers are below:

Why do you think there is such a craze for bottled water? What we have heard from many is that bottled water is so popular do to its convenience. You don’t have to remember to fill up a water bottle before you leave the house or try to find somewhere to fill up when out in public. Unfortunately, the bottled water industry has convinced the public that bottled water is safer or cleaner than tap water which has in fact been proven incorrect through hundreds of studies.

 Why do you so strongly disagree with having bottled water? The plastic waste to our environment is immense and that’s not considering what it does to human health. Studies have shown the negative effects that BPA in water bottles has on humans. I recently posted an article that stated over 20 million tons of plastic enters the earth’s oceans each year and a large majority is bottled water.

Pricing of Bottled Water

One of the main reasons that people buy bottled water is that they think it's cheap. However, they are wrong...

After some research, we have come across a shocking quote from Nick Colas, a group chief market strategist. He says:

"The [bottled water] industry grossed a total of $11.8 billion on 9.7 billion gallons in 2012, making bottled water about $1.22/gallon nationwide and 300x the cost of a gallon of tap water," Colas says. "If we take into account the fact that almost 2/3 of all bottled water sales are single 16.9oz (500 mL) bottles, though, this cost is much, much higher: about $7.50 per gallon, according to the American Water Works Association. That’s almost 2,000x the cost of a gallon of tap water and twice the cost of a gallon of regular gasoline."

Welcome!

Hi, we are Jess, Niru and Eve, and welcome to our blog/website!

 

We are very passionate about banning bottled water, as we think that it is a terrible waste of money, time and resources. Why should we pay money for the destruction of the earth?!

 

A video that we particularly like is the first one on our "contact us" page. We think that it tells you loads about bottled water, and information that we could not find in any other sources.

 

Please take a good look around our blog

 

, learn a lot and have a good time!