22nd April 2022
Do you recall what you did for World Earth Day last year? No? Well, this April 22nd is a climate-positive game changer. Notpla and Somerset House invite you to join an Earth Day 2022 plastic-free experience by checking out Notpla’s groundbreaking Ooho Vending Machine at Somerset House located within Seaman’s Hall Reception (South Wing).
Experience our edible packaging, Ooho, in two flavours: lemon and garden mint for a nice refresher, or rose and elderflower for a delicate taste!
Enjoy your tasting, which is set to get eco-tongues wagging as one of the coolest experiences in any conscious Londoner’s spring calendar.
Somerset House – Where Sustainability Lives
For some organisations, sustainability is still just a tick-box exercise. Not so with Somerset House. This space, which champions working art and creativity, has a long history of taking the view that sustainability is critical and that it begins at home. Somerset House’s internal workings highlight this view – over 51% of energy is generated onsite.
Alongside London’s other cultural giants like the Design Museum, which asks visitors to re-think our relationship with waste Somerset House invites us all to engage with the newest eco-innovations for a more environmentally sound future. An exciting annual celebration of Earth Day has become a cornerstone of the Somerset House identity. The celebrations are must-see London events that are definitely not limited to just one day! This year’s Earth Day Season is welcoming the contemporary Artist designer Leeroy New, and will run from 7th March to 29th April.
Following the success of our Vending Machine at the Design Museum, we feel deeply honoured to have an Ooho Vending Machine in Seaman’s Hall Reception during Earth Day festivities, and give visitors the opportunity to taste the future with our Ooho edible drink!
Taste the future with Notpla edible packaging!
A thirst for change
Unravelling the secrets of the vast oceans and tapping into the superpowers of seaweed for the betterment of mankind might seem like thirsty work. And it is. But at Notpla, our team works tirelessly to create packaging solutions made from seaweed and plant extracts that can replace single-use plastic, and are suitable for the demands of everyday life.
Our edible packaging, Ooho, is our first iconic product. We are super excited to now have the world’s first Ooho vending machine in the center of London to quench your thirst in a plastic-free way!
What are Oohos?
Think of all of the liquids you love, encapsulated in fully edible, transparent and sustainable packaging, leaving not a trace after use. With Oohos, what you have is a neat way of delivering bubbles of hydration without using plastic!
Oohos were created in 2014 by our two co-founders, Pierre and Rodrigo. At the heart of their work was the following question: “How to deliver water to people without using plastic?” They started with the idea of fruit being a form of packaging that occurs in nature. Like them, don't you think that an orange peel is the perfect natural container? Mirroring nature, they are using edible ingredients, such as seaweed, to build their own sustainable packaging.
Since going viral in 2014, Oohos have made Notpla the centre of gravity for all things Edible Packaging. Oohos are playful, revolutionary, and the first of many Notpla products also made from seaweed!
You might have spotted some Oohos already at some events such as the London Marathon, Roland Garros or Glastonbury Festival, replacing plastic cups and bottles.
This month, we also partnered with Ozone Coffee Roasters to serve delicious brew coffee in a way that was completely zero waste at the London Coffee Festival!
What is an Ooho Vending Machine?
We know that for Ooho to take off, quenching your thirst with edible seaweed products needs to be easy, accessible and above all – fun! That’s why we built the Ooho Vending Machines as a major first step to bringing Oohos to new and exciting places!
Thinking outside the box, we understood that the Ooho Vending Machines needed to adapt to the needs of all the drinks companies out there who want to engage with sustainability, but without sacrificing their brands. Ooho Vending Machines are perfect for these companies as Oohos are not only lean, mean hydration machines, they also offer the flexibility of bespoke flavour development.
Ooho Vending Machines offer the eco-conscious consumer an innovative way to engage directly with companies that are taking sustainability seriously. On the other side of the coin, the Vending Machines gives companies an opportunity to showcase their own delicious and eco-friendly thirst-quenching developments to their ideal audience – you!
We believe Ooho Vending Machines are a win-win for consumers and companies. To learn more about how to get an Ooho Vending Machine to your site, location or product activation, just drop us a line.
Celebrating World Earth Day at Somerset House
What is World Earth Day?
The origin
Picture a day – April 22nd 1970 to be exact – when 20 million sustainability early adopters poured into various streets in the USA to protest against the havoc that man-made climate change was wreaking on the planet. This was the genesis of World Earth Day. The movement became global in the 1990s, and ever since, once a year on that day, like-minded planet progressives around the globe have come together to celebrate and honour Planet Earth, and to reflect seriously on the burning issues around climate change.
Earth Day has achieved numerous important successes, including being credited with pushing through key environmental laws in the USA such as the Clean Air, Clean Water and Endangered Species Acts. The Environmental Protection Agency also owes its existence to World Earth Day.
What’s more, Earth Day is also a non-profit organisation with a presence in 192 countries and a mission to be the world’s largest recruiter to the environmental movement. Therefore, eco-warriors dedicated to protecting the planet’s finite natural resources have a meaningful starting point for shaping a career in sustainability.
Make every day Earth Day
Since the world woke up in the 1980s to everyday ecological realities like the link between aerosol cans and the destruction of the ozone layer, the need to make every day World Earth Day has sadly become altogether more pressing. The list of calamities caused by climate change grows daily. This makes the vital work of Notpla and organisations like Somerset House – which practice the goals of Earth Day and share education angles about it – all the more pressing.
Despite the challenges, organisers of Earth Day feel there are reasons for optimism. By clearly and simply educating visitors to their website about the startling toil that, say, fast fashion takes on the planet, the organisation believes that individual behaviours can change for the better. Learning that it takes 3,781 litres of water to make a single pair of jeans certainly gives one pause!
The theme of Earth Day 2022 is ‘Invest in Our Planet’. The idea behind the theme is that a clean future is a prosperous future – prosperous for individuals; prosperous for businesses and prosperous for governments. No one is without the weight of responsibility in this goal and no one is without a part to play. Earth Day 2022 invites each and every one of us to answer one simple question, ‘What Will You Do?’.
So, what will you do?
[caption id="attachment_32256" align="alignnone" width="1024"]
Photo credit: Sam Scales[/caption]
Experience Ooho at Somerset House for World Earth Day 2022!
Along with Somerset House, Notpla believes that the widespread adoption of Ooho Vending Machines offers an introduction to innovative sustainable materials and an alternative to single-use plastic.
It is estimated by Euromonitor that as of 2021, 576 billion plastic beverage bottles were produced annually. Among them, a big part is dedicated to on-the-go consumption and will be used just a few minutes before ending in the bin. If not recycled properly, it might end up in landfills or in the ocean, and will take hundreds of years to disappear.
On the other hand, Notpla makes packaging disappear naturally! Oohos are edible, so you can just eat them! If you prefer not to, they're 100% home-compostable, so will degrade in 4-6 weeks, just like a piece of fruit!
There is a science to making this kind of far-reaching change, and if this introduction to Oohos has left you with a thirst for the knowledge of how and why we create our Notpla range of sustainable products – including our groundbreaking fully edible film and sachets – click here to discover more.
Remember, a visit to Somerset House on April 22nd to check out Notpla’s Ooho Vending Machine and to try Oohos for yourself is the best way to discover Notpla’s work, not to mention a great way to celebrate our planet for Earth Day 2022. The machine will be there until the 28th of April!
Spread the word!
We look forward to watching the latest Ooho adopters celebrate Earth Day 2022 by sharing their very own first Ooho moments on social media – remember to tag @notpla and use our hashtags: #Oohos and #makingpackagingdisappear!
Somerset House is London’s working arts centre which aims to bring together big ideas with young and ambitious businesses. The organisation exists to tackle the most pressing challenges of the day, with recent exhibitions focusing on climate change and the pioneering work of black creatives. Somerset House is fully open to the public between 10am-7pm. Some exhibitions and refreshment facilities open for longer hours.
Today’s guest blogger is Joy Archer. Joy is an eco-lectic interior designer and a sustainability journalist. She makes the case for a more eco-friendly lifestyle that respects wildlife and the planet’s natural resources on her own blog available at www.wilderjoystudio.com
