Chopsticks Contain Seeds to Grow Plants
Aside from being a great green concept, it is always impressive to see such ideas tested and implemented in physical reality – even if, for other reasons, they may remain forever prototypes.
The design revolves around a hard starch capsule set on the end of a chopstick, which, after a meal, is stuck into the ground, slowly breaks down in the turn and releases a seed that, finally, sprouts slowly into a chopstick-climbing plant.
Its creator, Gyeongwan Koo, researched starch thoroughly for this project and concluded that if it could be used for toothpicks and hard pill casings it would work for this application as well.
Still, one thing is a bit puzzling: why not put the capsule portion on the back end, rather than having the user actually pick up food with it?
“The ‘rebirth’, a disposable wood chopstick, of new life will start when it plants on the earth after using it. Basically, the ‘rebirth’ is made of a pair of wood sticks, of which size is 18×0.3×0.5 (cm). In the detail, it had a seed in the starch cap, located hand of the ‘rebirth’. Another side of the ‘rebirth’ has a hole, which is possible to combine other chopsticks. “
“It would be difficult to express myself totally with fifteen design awards, Hyundai Hysco competition (Grand prize), LG Global Challenger(UCC Promotion :Second prize), LG CYON (Second prize & Encouragement prize), Taejoo lighting design award(Silver prize), Osaka and Taiwan international design competition(Excellent work), but the award experiences have provided other dimensional opportunities to broaden my perspective. During the preparation processes, I have realized my lesser competencies from the participants and the panel of judges in various fields, so I could consider other fields. Finally, I can put and blend the various enthusiastic ‘source’ arising from my invaluable experiences into my melting pot.”
