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ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY
Water bubbles seek tiny environmental footprint
Skipping Rocks Lab ’ s Ooho offers an alternative to combat the proliferation of individually bottled water worldwide .
By Mike Flenniken
Russ Chaney
In the spirit of the sharing of unique experiences that shape the plumbing industries in our respective nations , the following article looks at a startup company ’ s efforts to move the world away from disposable water bottles . Written by IAPMO staff writer Mike Flenniken , it is the next in a regular series of similar articles that will run in this magazine .
A London-based start-up company is looking to burst the bottled water industry ’ s bubble .
Using a membrane that consists of plant and seaweed extract , Skipping Rocks Lab has created the Ooho , an edible water bubble that its creators hope will help make a dent in the billions of plastic water bottles that are used around the world each year .
Oohos are designed to be peeled like a fruit , and the outer membrane is edible and tasteless . Grossed out by the thought of eating the seaweed membrane ? No problem ; the membrane will biodegrade within four to six weeks , just like a piece of fruit . A plastic water bottle , on the other hand , takes hundreds of years to decompose .
The water bubbles can be flavoured and coloured , and Skipping Rocks is developing Oohos that are varied in size and in thickness of the membranes , as well as some that have multiple layers . The membrane also is capable of holding liquids other than water . In addition to creating onetenth of the carbon dioxide emissions as plastic bottles , they are no more expensive to create , the company says .
Created in 2014 as part of the Climate-KIC Accelerator programme founded by the European Institute of Innovation & Technology ( EIT ), Skipping Rocks Laboratory has been working out of Imperial College in London . The team consists of chemists , engineers , and an advisory board .
“ Water is something very essential , but we use very , very energy-intensive and precious materials for just drinking on the go ,” he said during his Collaborative 2016 talk in Boston .
Individually bottled water did not exist 40 years ago , he said , and consumption is increasing all over the world .
“ The whole market has been completely created out of thin air ; the growth is about 10 % per year , and with a lot of emerging countries who are rapidly reaching the same kind of level of consumption that we have in the US or in Europe , it ’ s really a global problem .”
Paslier said Ooho was initially a student project that they did not think they would pursue long term , so they shared their experiments online with Creative Commons , showing people how to make them at home .
Rodrigo Garcia Gonzalez , an inventor , designer , architect , and engineer , and Pierre-Yves Paslier , an innovation design engineer , co-founded Skipping Rocks and serve as co- CEOs . Through Climate-KIC , they teamed up with energy finance professional Lise Honsinger , who now serves as chief operating officer / chief financial officer .
Paslier said during their research , they learned that to make a 1l bottle requires 7l of water in the manufacturing process and half a litre of crude oil .
Skipping Rocks Lab
February 2018 Volume 23 I Number 12 www . plumbingafrica . co . za