Ooho: The edible water bottle  

By: Lilly Jung

Have you ever run in a marathon? Even if you haven’t, the most important part of running is staying hydrated. According to the American College of Sports Medicine, you should drink up to 5 to 12 ounces of fluids every 15 to 20 minutes. And with about 1.3 million people running a marathon per year, that’s approximately 760,000 plastic water bottles being thrown away just from marathons. Not only that, Americans buy close to 50 billion water bottles per year, and over 40 billion of those are wasted.  This fact came as a shock to almost everyone around the world. Thus, an edible water bottle was finally invented. 

Ooho (which you read as “Oh-ho”)  is an edible water bottle, made from seaweed. The idea was first made by three college students in 2014, and is now currently sold in convenience stores located in Japan. It’s just a small transparent membrane filled with water, a large drop of edible and biodegradable water. The most interesting part about this is that Ooho is made 100% of seaweed and plants, wrapped in a thin layer of supplemental natural ingredients. It’s also easy to make at home, with many sites and videos online showing straightforward tutorials. When seeing the videos, it makes it simpler to understand the ingredients contained when making Ooho, and how it tastes.

Ooho has had a rise to prominence since it started to be developed, with the product starting to be used by various brands over the past two years. In March 2018, high street luxury retailer Selfridges announced it would provide the edible plastic in the food hall of its iconic Oxford Street site. Some marathons even replaced the plastic water bottles with edible ones. Speaking in April 2019, London Marathon event director Hugh Brasher said: “We are passionate about the concept of eliminate, reduce, reuse and recycle and fully committed to reducing our environmental impact. This means 760,000 plastic water bottles are saved. Like this, we can see how much environmental change Ohoo can have towards society.

As mentioned before, Ohoo is being sold in Japan, along with London, San Francisco and Boston. Since it’s so simple to make with such simple ingredients, its production expense is only two cents. However, Ooho is still in its very early days. This means that it is currently only available at certain events across the globe. They mostly make an appearance at conferences, private functions, festivals, and pop-up stores.