Water is the most abundant yet the most precious commodity we have on our planet earth. It is the source of our creation, the substance of our existence and one of the major things that make our planet habitable. Our bodies are comprised of 75 percent of it, yet we take this precious gift of nature so lightly and wastefully.
In the face of the current climate change crisis around the globe, preserving water and consuming it in a responsible and sustainable way should be our utmost priority. And one thing that ironically adds to the woes of global pollution and clean water body depletion is the disposable plastic water bottle. Today we will cover 4 awesome innovations from some young and brilliant minds determined and concerned enough to do something for mother earth.
1. Ooho!
Picture yourself putting your hand inside a water body and picking up a clear palm-sized orb. You can place this wobbly bubble of sheer beauty on your hand and the water would not flow and spill over anywhere, without even a container or a bottle to hold it. Sounds pretty cool, right? But wait there’s more; this orb actually consists of drinkable water. And this soft, spherical heavenly container has zero plastic. Instead, the water is kept together in the shape of an orb by biodegradable material made from seaweed. Adding to this unreal concept, the Ooho! water containers are cheap and sustainable to make. It is developed by a London-based start-up called Skipping Rocks Lab, and the project has already won a couple of notable awards and recognition from the likes of Wired, Times and The Telegraph.
2. Slingshot
To be able to create crystal clear water from undrinkable, sewerage water without expending a lot of energy; now that is the real dream. And a machine called Slingshot is doing just that! It is a very compact, portable machine which processes unclean, littered and contaminated water and cleans it to make portable drinking water ready to be used any way one would like. This is done through the power of vapor compression distillation, at an energy expense amounting to mere 2% of its similar purification counterparts. This has the potential to provide clean water for communities that don’t have it, which roughly amounts to a billion people across the planet!
Here is a video explaining this concept:
3. Hemp water bottles
This is a start-up created out of San Jose, California and is another great addition to the sustainable solutions by creating bottles out of the plant called hemp. They are similar to the plastic bottles in the weight and durability, with the key difference and advantage being that they are biodegradable and pose no health or environmental risks. They’re also recyclable and have the potential to be 2.5 times stronger than their polypropylene counterparts.
Here’s a video explaining the concept:
4. The Ocean Cleanup
Do you know what happens to all the empty water bottles and other plastic materials after we toss them out? Besides rolling around our streets and clogging up the sewers, a large chunk of this plastic ends up in our oceans, 8 million tons/year to be precise. And the harmful chemicals from plastics and other contaminants make their way into the the marine life and destroys oceans’ ecosystem.
This is where The Ocean Cleanup project comes in! Using the ocean’s natural currents, it uses a system of floating barriers that safely catch what comes with the tide. Using this system it is estimated that half of the Great Garbage Patch could be eradicated in 10 years.
We can all do our part to preserve Earth’s precious resources. You can start by using a reusable water container and by using water responsibly and moderately.
Have any more cool water saving ventures you want us to cover?
Comment below!