Ooho Water Bulb (Or Blob) Replaces Horrific Plastic Bottles
Ooho is a biodegradable container for drinking water that may soon be coming to a person's palm near you. The intent is to get rid of plastic bottles, which currently threaten to take over the Earth.
(The Ooho water bulb video)
Up to nearly 50% of 2.4 million tons of discarded plastic comes from plastic water bottles, according to the Clean Air Council If eventually mass produced, Ooho could go a long way toward reducing this waste.
"The reality is that every day more, when we drink water we throw away a plastic bottle," Rodrigo García González, one of three London-based industrial design students behind the project, told Mashable. "This act of consumerism reflects the society in which we live. Ooho proposes an alternative."
Trapped inside two layers of membrane made of brown algae and calcium chloride, water is released from the glob of liquid when its casing is punctured. The membrane can then either be eaten or thrown away, similar to the skin of an apple.
Fans of sf author Larry Niven might be thinking of his drinking bulbs from his Known Space stories like The Warriors (1966) and Ringworld (1970).
However, a less well-known use of this term and idea may be found in Pohl and Kornbluth's 1952 classic The Space Merchants:
I held up my bulb of water and my ration box. The seal had clearly been tampered with on both containers, and visibly there was water missing.
(Read more about water bulbs)
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!)
is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for
the Invention Category that interests
you, the Glossary, the Invention
Timeline, or see what's New.