We Can Eliminate Plastic Water Bottles

I was out for lunch with some friends recently, and the server at the restaurant announced that they no longer used plastic straws, but had converted to a thinner bamboo like straw, for ecological reasons.  Plastic straws take hundreds of years to decompose, and hurt fish and other sea life when thrown into the ocean.  We talked at lunch that day about getting rid of plastic bottles, one of our biggest problems.

Two days later I saw an article about a design student at the Iceland Academy of Arts, Ari Jonasson, who had created a biodegradable bottle out of agar, a substance made from algae.  If the agar powder is mixed with water, it creates a jelly like substance that can easily be molded into bottles.  As long as the bottle is full of water it keeps it shape.  When the water is removed from the bottle, it collapses.  It is edible (but probably not very tasty), but also biodegradable.  It will decompose rapidly.

Right now, 50% of plastic bottles are used once, then thrown away.  They end up in landfills, where they take centuries to decompose.  Algae is abundant, and once the technology is perfected, I suspect we will see our water sold in something other than plastic bottles.  Algae and seaweed have so many uses.  They are being used as fuel and are also used in many kinds of furniture, like lamps.  Now we can add water bottles to the list of important uses for algae.  I guess it takes an innovative young student to come up with a unique solution that will solve a serious problem.