Designing an edible water bottle when she was 12 years old.
Madison has always loved the beach. Walking down her favourite beach in California (USA) one day when she was 12 years old, Madison couldn’t help but notice plastic water bottles cluttering the sand and sea. She learnt that her favourite animals, turtles, were confusing plastic for food and swallowing it which was making them very sick.
A few weeks later, Madison’s school organised a science fair and students were encouraged to design a product that would help the environment. Madison thought back to that beach walk and knew exactly what she wanted to do. She said, ‘The beach is one of my favourite places to go and seeing it all trashed up with plastic water bottles, I just felt like this needed to change’. So, Madison set out on a journey to design an eco-friendly water bottle that could be eaten instead of thrown away.
Madison read of a technique used by many chefs called reverse specification, where a liquid is contained inside a gel casing. This is used to make the popping boba in bubble tea drinks for example. Madison learnt that to do this she would need to mix calcium lactate, xantham gym, lemon juice and water in a blender. She repeated this process again and again to figure out what the perfect quantities of each ingredient were. Sometimes it would pop, other times it was too hard to break or would taste too soapy. After weeks of grit, determination, and perseverance Madison found the perfect recipe. Madison’s bottle, named Eco-Hero, lasts 3 weeks in the fridge, holds 200ml of water, and costs just $1.20 (about £1.00) to make. The outside of the bottle has the texture of a gummy sweet with a slightly lemony flavour.
Madison has won multiple school, state-, and nation-wide awards for her amazing invention. But Madison won’t stop there. Madison is now on a mission to improve the water bottle and make it resealable, strongerand bigger. She imagines her invention could be used during marathons or races – as runners stop for water, they’d be able to grab an Eco Hero, drink the water and either eat or dispose the membrane.
