May 13, 2014

Ooho, the edible water bottle.

Assuming you want to consume something gelatinous as you drink water, there's still the problem of needing to package the package, since if you're going to eat the package, it can't sit around in boxes and on shelves getting dusty and germy.

6 comments:

tim maguire said...

It's also quite a process--freeze the water so that the solid can be dipped in a series of chemicals and algae. The end result is too fragile for most bottled-water uses (they describe it as the skin of a fruit).

It's neat that they did this, but the Smithsonian over-sells it.

K in Texas said...

When looking at the polluting footprint, don't forget the fossil fuel fired power plant to make the electricity to freeze that water. Also, the energy to grow the algae, power for the chemical plant to process the algae and make food grade calcium chloride.

I just "love" greenies that want to ban everything, shut down the coal fired power plants, but still want their tablet, smart phone, trendy loft with the Ikea furniture made with partial synthetics,and so on. You still need to use a carbon base (oil, natural gas) as a feedstock for making the plastic for those products. Very little of what we consume/use is pollution free.

Bob Boyd said...

Do you have any idea how many pairs of women's panties are discarded every year?
Neither do I, but I bet its a lot.

For my purposes, I think its fair to characterize these trashy panties as clogging up landfills and as a crisis in the making.
I should also impress upon you that these are panties discarded by Americans.....Americans, so they are bigger and uglier and probably sturdy. Europeans and other groups doubtless discard their tiny, lacy, little panties in a much more nuanced and sensitive way, but I digress.
What can be done to combat this threat to our environment and our future?
Two words: Edible Panties. They're organic, they're fat free and they should be on every environmentalist's list of must haves, right after water bong and right before hackey sack.

Amy said...

That empty skin looks exactly like a used condom. Ew.

I never understand why people can't carry a refillable water bottle. Problem solved.

John henry said...

I predicted this last year!

Seriously.

I spoke at a sustainability conference in Frankfurt about water bottles. http://knowledgeshare.com/ I began by pointing out that weights of 500ml PET bottles had been decreasing for the past 15 years. I showed that if the trend continued, by 2023 there would be no plastic in water bottles.

It was tongue in cheek and got a laugh.

Now I find that I was right!

I guess I really am a seer of all seers, prognosticator of all prognosticators or, as I say on my business card, a "Wizard".

It is actually a pretty cool technology.

There are dirt shedding and anti-bacterial coatings being developed. I've thought of the problem Ann mentioned of keeping the bottle clean and I wonder if combining the various technologies might do the trick.

John Henry

John henry said...

Re the panties:

Anyone remember records? Those vinyls disks we used to listen to for music?

In 1972 Alice Cooper's first album came with the disk in a pair of paper panties. Not edible, though.

Never caught on.

Hard to believe that Alice Cooper has been around that long.

Hard to believe I've been around that long. Just hanging out waiting to see what happens next.

John Henry