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London Marathon Hands out Edible Water Packets Made from Seaweed to Reduce Plastic Waste

Photo Credit: Instagram, Ooho

Runners at the 2019 London Marathon had an eco-friendly alternative to disposable water bottles: seaweed pods full of water. We’re officially in the future, ya’ll!

Each year, tens of thousands of athletes run the London Marathon. All of those runners need to hydrate, and they can’t exactly carry disposable water bottles with them. The streets after the race are always littered with a sea of empty plastic bottles.

Enter Ooho, a company that makes edible seaweed pods full of water. The pod material is cheaper to produce than plastic, and, if uneaten, it biodegrades within six weeks. It also has no taste.

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These pods look a lot more palatable than you might expect a seaweed pod to be!

“What we use is the building blocks of seaweed,” Ooho co-founder Rodrigo Garcia Gonzalez explained. “We remove all the green stuff and the smelly stuff.”

The company has practiced handing out the pods at a few races so far, but the London race was their first full marathon.

The pods are bite-sized, so they’re ideal for people who need to hydrate in a hurry.

They can be filled with anything, not just water! Some of the Ooho pods at the London Marathon were filled with sports drink. At music festivals, many people prefer the Espresso Martini version.

Pretty neat!