Thousands Of Edible Water Capsules Were Handed Out At The London Marathon To Reduce Plastic Waste
Many of us might be aware that single-use plastics are killing the planet and not exactly serving us much use either. Although we are still struggling to find sustainable alternatives to meet our every need. Water bottles are an integral part of any sports event. It is obvious that the athletes that perform require a good supply of hydration. Sometimes, the aftermath of these events leaves us with a giant amount of water bottles which then need to be disposed of. The London Marathon is doing its bit to curb this giant mass of plastic generation and reduce the plastic waste that we create.
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While generally, the running routes are full of plastic bottles after the events, this year it was different. But this year, for the 2019 marathon, the organizers have decided to set a green precedent that we hope every other organization, not just sporting ones, undertake. The participants of the marathon were handed edible water pods which were manufactured using seaweed extracts.
The product is supposed to provide them the much-needed hydration that they require but they are made of materials which can biodegrade within 6 weeks as opposed to the almost half millennia that plastic bottles would require. This innovative idea is credited to Skipping Rocks Lab, a startup based in London, United Kingdom.
The product that was deployed in the marathon is known as the Ooho! water sachet. The sachet can be popped inside one’s mouth to drink the water inside and the covering is also edible. In case the runners do not wish to consume the casing, the casing can be disposed of anywhere and it will decompose. With the marathon marking a milestone for this product, the startup founder told CNN, they will look forward to scale in the near future.
Unfortunately, the marathon was not 100% plastic-free since there were bottled water shops present on the marathon route. But as the green precedent demanded, the organizers would ensure that all the bottles used would be in some part made by using recycled plastic as well as the bottles used in the marathon would be recycled after collection.
It is very heartwarming to also know that the organizers are also experimenting with other methods to find out the most efficient way of recycling the bottles.
The organizers would also employ the use of something called “closed loop”. A system which would collect bottles in Canary Wharf, Southwark, Greenwich, and Tower Hamlets; and then return the bottles directly to a plant which would reprocess them and recycle them into new water bottles again.