One potential option is a new biomass material made from an unexpected source: rice. Grown in more than a hundred countries, rice is the world’s most popular cereal crop, and its starch can be modified into a bio-based resin that behaves a lot like synthetic polyethylene plastic.

A Japanese furniture company called Meuble Co. Ltd. is developing a material they call RICEWAVE to replace the polyethylene they typically use to produce the cushions for their furniture, like the Dorothy Sofa Bed pictured below. Working with partner companies Biomass Resin Holdings and Mitsui & Co. Plastics Ltd., Meuble has spent the last five years prototyping products made with biomass materials.

Rice stood out as a strong contender because it’s grown locally to the company, within Japan. Not only does rice resin make use of inedible waste rice that normally gets thrown away, it can also be purpose-grown in abandoned agricultural areas of the country as an economic stimulant.

“Abandoned cultivated land in Japan is vast, exceeding the size of two Tokyo metropolitan areas,” the company explains, adding: “We have started making rice for rice resin in this abandoned land, which will lead to agricultural support and aim to revitalize the region.”

Using bio-based rice resin instead of petroleum-based plastic comes with another benefit: lower CO2 emissions. Mitsui & Co., which specializes in raw materials, says replacing just 30 percent of the petroleum-based plastic in a shopping bag with rice biomass can cut emissions by 30 percent.

Meuble Co. hopes RICEWAVE will ultimately replace polyethylene altogether in its core material, the petroleum-based “LITEWAVE,” which it produces using in-house patented technology. As is usually the case when attempting to switch to bio-based materials, that will require big changes to the manufacturing process. It won’t be cheap or easy, but Meuble Co. thinks it will be worth it, especially if they’re successful at proving rice-based furniture materials perform just as well as their synthetic alternatives.

Rice resin can also be used to replace at least some of the petroleum-based materials in trash bags, cutlery, toys, food packaging, and other consumer products. Currently, many so-called biodegradable packaging materials don’t fully break down in the environment because they contain small quantities of synthetic polymers like polyolefin. Replacing those polymers with rice resin or similar bio-based materials could actually make biodegradable products more durable and give them the ability to replace synthetic fiber-reinforced plastics in all kinds of products, even within the automotive industry.

Other parts of rice plants can be diverted to similarly eco-friendly uses. Though currently the standard practice is to simply let it rot, rice waste like husks, straw, and bran could be used for building materials, fertilizer, biomass fuels and more.

The post RICEWAVE: A New Eco-Friendly Furniture Material Made of Inedible Rice first appeared on Dornob.

Entrepreneurs Ari Tolwin and Joe Scovino pitched their plant-based milk company on Shark Tank in March 2021, earning Cuban’s praise (and funds) while sparking curiosity among alternative milk lovers everywhere. Their original product is a grocery store kiosk that lets you make hemp, oat, and nut-based milks on demand with reusable containers. Now, they’re bringing it home with a Keurig-like countertop gadget.

Numilk Home is a plant-based milk machine that eliminates the need for single-use bottles or cartons, allowing you to make fresh plant-based milks, lattes, and protein-based shakes in less than a minute. You just fill the reusable glass bottle with water, insert one of Numilk’s pouches, lower the handle, and press the start button. The device opens and presses the pouch while the bottle emulsifies it with water. Best of all, it comes with a 32-ounce bottle for larger batches and a 16 oz. bottle for individual servings or use on the go.

Some of the pouches contain nothing more than ground nut and Himalayan pink salt, but you can also choose from a selection of flavors, lattes, and protein shakes with ingredients like organic cacao, organic dates, maple syrup, herbs, spices, and adaptogens like reishi mushroom. The company also plans to offer seasonal flavors like Pumpkin Spice and Nut Nog. They can all be ordered straight from the Numilk website and cost between $3 and $5.

No doubt you’re already thinking, “aren’t those pouches packaging waste?” Well, yeah, pretty much. Thankfully they can be recycled, and it’s true that they represent far less packaging volume and shipping weight than conventional plant-based milks that are pre-mixed with water. If you’re looking for a kitchen gadget that will help you make your own almond, cashew, oat, or hemp milk using fresh bulk ingredients from your local co-op, Numilk unfortunately isn’t it. But not everyone is hardcore enough to go through the trouble of doing that in the first place, and Numilk seems aimed at consumers who want a balance between convenience and the option with the lowest possible environmental footprint.

“Three years ago, we asked ourselves: What if we could revolutionize plant-based milk to make it what it should be – waste-free, pure, nutritious, and delicious; better for our taste buds, health, and better for the environment?” explain the inventors. “We introduced innovative grocery kiosks that allow folks to make the best plant-based milk immediately right on-site. It’s the most delicious and nutritious plant-based milk, eliminates nearly all waste, much better for the environment with reusable consumer packaging, and 90 percent LESS product shipping weight.”

If you’re ready to invest in your own Numilk machine, catch their Kickstarter campaign while you can. Backers pledging at least $199 will get a Numilk machine bundle with a 32-ounce bottle and 4 free milk pouches, all for $100 off the retail price.

The post Make Fresh Plant-Based Milk at Home With the NuMilk Machine first appeared on Dornob.

That’s a big stroke of brilliance for our environment, as one-third of the average U.S. garbage dump today is made up of packaging material. And the situation’s not much better in other industrialized countries, either. According to the EU, Europeans generated roughly 174 kgs (383 pounds) of packaging waste per person in 2018.

Eliminating more of those cardboard boxes and plastic bubble wrap sheets is exactly what was on the mind of industrial design student Sungrai Kim when he invented the “Light Box.” More specifically, his concept uses the cardboard case that houses the electrical kit to become a lampshade. Its biodegradable, economical, and even gives the buyer a little origami practice.

Included in the Light Box is a mini electric light kit with three bulb modules, three solar panels, and a charging wire. The binding string that holds the package together also doubles as the hanging string, while the box itself is marked with both perforated and dotted lines, with enough material to build three separate luminescent configurations.

The first is an indoor hanging light that uses the cardboard as an adjustable lamp shade. It utilizes the package fastening strap and a retaining clip to allow a range of height and brightness.

Secondly, the Light Box can be shaped for the outdoors, similar in style to a flashlight. In this case, the carton folds up into a handheld device with an octagonal grip.

Finally, the contents can be assembled as a show light. Working like a spotlight, this configuration allows users to “enjoy a variety of shadow plays” with the four different shadow graph frames included in the packaging (one even looks like a ship with its sails unfurled). Kim, currently enrolled at Chung-Ang University in Seoul, says the show version can also provide indoor mood ambience.

Because of its solar capabilities, Kim’s creation is super versatile. It can light up your camping trips or provide a cozy glow in an apartment. It could also have widespread applications in poorer areas of the world where electricity is scarce or unreliable. Kim hopes his invention will improve the quality of life for people everywhere.

And of course, this modular lantern is revolutionary in its use of packaging as product. Most companies are simply looking for ways to make packing materials more biodegradable or more sustainably-sourced, but the Light Box is one of a kind in terms of wrapping and shipping the product in itself.

Some notable attempts to compel packaging to at least multi-task include Pizza Hut’s 2016 gimmick that saw its iconic pizza box turned into a DJ turntable, which itself could be Bluetooth-paired and controlled via smartphone phone. Later, in 2019, Puma fashioned the Clever Little Bag, a shoebox for bringing home purchases that morphed into a reusable tote after the shoes and cardboard insert were removed.

For those interested in learning more about Kim’s illuminating handiwork, his Light Box can be found exclusively on Behance.com, a social media platform that aims to “showcase and discover creative work.”

The post This Light is Made Out of Its Own Packaging first appeared on Dornob.

Categories for the competition ranged from food and beverage to personal care, and the winners received acknowledgement for breakthroughs in both technology and user experience.

The 2020 Diamond Award, the ceremony’s highest honor, went to Plastic Bank’s Social Plastic Ecosystem, designed in collaboration with Henkel. The partnership relied on Plastic Bank’s work to divert plastic from entering the Earth oceans, a program from which Henkel produced and sold 25,000 recycled cosmetic bottles across Europe. The joint project also provided economic support for people in extreme poverty. Their win emphasizes the goal of the competition in identifying more sustainable packaging options and highlighting solutions for environmental and societal issues.

Diego Donoso, business president for DOW Packaging & Specialty Plastics, summarized this idea by saying: “I am especially inspired by this year’s Packaging Innovation Awards winners because of the industry’s continued focus on innovation and sustainability, despite the difficult global conditions caused by the pandemic. The entry and judging processes were fully virtual this year for the first time, and it still produced strong competition with rigorous judging to recognize the top innovations.”

Although this year’s contest may have looked a little different, judges from a variety of fields including design, engineering, retail, and academia still reviewed more than 175 entries from all corners of the globe.

“I’ve been a judge in the Packaging Innovation Awards for many years, and this one presented a unique challenge in the way it was structured,” said lead judge David Luttenberger, Global Packaging Director for Mintel Group. “Despite the challenging circumstances, the participants delivered the same quality of innovations as in previous years.”

In addition to the top-ranking Diamond Award, the judges identified three Diamond Finalists. The first was Zacros in collaboration with The Procter & Gamble Company of Japan Limited for their Ariel Platinum Sports Refill Pouch. A second award went to Alico for a Metal-Free Recyclable Coffee Packaging design. The final mention in the category was Kirin Holdings Co. in collaboration with Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation for an entry titled “New Thin Film Deposition Technology for PET Bottles.”

In addition, six Gold Award winners included the Mama Silage Bag, an Easy Carry Pouch, the Mexico Yoghurt Cup, Oxi-free High Barrier Green Grain Coffee Packaging, Maybelline FitMe® Matte + Poreless Foundation, and Veja Specialists Redesign. These Gold Award-winning designs come from a variety of corporate collaborations.

Recognition also went to five Silver Award winners with packaging innovation in fragrance, an anti-slip bag, easy peel food packaging, recyclable cheese wrap, and Raflatac Forest Film made from renewable raw materials.

In addition, the Calyx Concentrate Container, Grove Bags Terploc® Film, and Sustainable Load Securing System for Drums on Pallets received honorable mentions.

DOW’s mission is to continue to grow as an industry leader in materials science innovation. DOW operates 109 manufacturing sites in 31 countries and employs approximately 36,500 people.

The post Winners Named in 2020 Packaging Innovation Awards first appeared on Dornob.

For many people, plastic necessities include packaging that helps keep food fresh, because food waste is just as big of an environmental problem as pollution. Americans waste an incredible 150,000 tons of food each and every day — about a pound of food wasted for every person in the country. Most of it is thrown away because it’s spoiled.

But if you look beyond the convenient plastic wrap and disposable zip-top bags found at your local grocery store, there are plenty of ways to make food last. Products that use vacuum seals without the need for disposables might even keep food fresher for longer than ever, and all without the environmental impact.

“Equilibric Vacuum Lids” are a new offering that aim to be just as convenient and easy to use as conventional methods, but with much better results. It’s a set of universal vacuum-suction “Freshy” lids that remove all the air from your food containers. The accompanying automatic pump takes just five seconds to “seal your meal” using a small motor.

The process prevents bacteria buildup, prevents oxidation caused by exposure to oxygen, and seals in just the right amount of moisture so food doesn’t dry out. The special silicone sealant on the lids also lets them fit almost all dishes, pots, pans, coffee containers, and drinking glasses. The three sizes fit any diameter from five to 40 centimeters (about two to 15 inches), and they’re dishwasher safe.

“Freshy! is a technologically advanced universal vacuum lid [that uses a] special silicone coating to form a vacuum seal with just about any size container, dish, or pan. Freshy! is so fast and so easy to use. Once the lid is placed on top of the container, you simply attach the hand-held turbo pump to the lid and in seconds, the air is pumped out of the container, allowing you to keep food fresher, tasting better, and [lasting] up to seven times longer than [it would in] a regular plastic container.”

“Equilibric! is here to put an end to food waste and to help stretch your food dollars by fighting off food’s number one enemy of spoilage — air (oxygen). The air left in a container that food is stored in can cause food spoilage in several ways. It can help bacteria grow and it can cause damage to foods by oxidation (the same process that makes metal rust). When it comes right down to it, Equilibric! preserves your food by preventing the growth of mold or bacteria. It’s those things that make food spoil. And by removing oxygen, mold and bacteria can’t grow.”

Fresh fruits and vegetables are the most obvious foods to use with the Equilibric set, but leftovers, coffee, chips, cookies, and other snack foods can benefit, too. As a bonus, the set’s included drink cap even works on bottles of wine.

Check out the Equilibric Kickstarter Campaign for more information on backing the project and preordering in the future.

The post Equilibric! Universal Vacuum Lids Keep Food Fresh Longer first appeared on Dornob.

Shipping products from one side of the planet to the other means ensuring the merchandise will arrive undamaged. More often than not, plastic foam, or polystyrene, is the lightweight functional material selected to do that job. But IKEA recognizes the damage to the planet that polystyrene causes, mostly because it takes hundreds (if not thousands) of years to decompose in landfill. By contrast, plant-based packaging can break down in a matter of weeks. Developed by product design company Ecovative Design, the mycelium-based material is called Mushroom Packaging, or MycoComposite. The material is actually grown in a controlled environment in less than a week, providing a sustainable option for any packaging requirement that might arise.

Mycelium works in conjunction with several other plant-based materials, including hemp, husk, oat hulls, and cotton burrs. The manufacturing of the new packaging material begins at the Ecovative Design foundry based in Green Island, New York, where the company has already partnered with several local farmers. Once ground, sorted, and cleaned, the agricultural products are combined with the mycelium and sealed for several days. During that time, the fungus grows around those products, filling the empty spaces within the mold. The newly-formed material is then heat treated to dry out, kill spores, and ensure the stop of the growth process.

Joanna Yarrow, Head of Sustainability for IKEA in the UK, says that “the great thing about mycelium is you can grow it into a mold that then fits exactly. You can create bespoke packaging.”

Based in Sweden, IKEA has long been a leader in corporate and environmental responsibility, going so far as to offer a plant-based alternative to the famous IKEA meatballs in response to reports of harmful methane gas emissions caused from raising cattle.

“IKEA wants to have a positive impact on people and planet,” explains another company spokesperson, “which includes taking a lead in turning waste into resources, developing reverse material flows for waste materials, and ensuring key parts of our range are easily recycled.”

Yarrow adds that deciding to use the mushroom-based packaging material was the retailer’s “small yet significant step towards reducing waste and conserving ecological balance.”

Conventional packaging waste makes up a massive portion of the plastic pollution damaging waterways, animals, and natural resources. On top of that, plastic is sourced from petroleum, which is itself an extremely limited resource. Even the manufacture of plastic pollutes the air. Post-consumer use, plastic lays around for generations, seeping into the dirt and water where animals then ingest it. Humans, in turn, eat those animals.

Mushroom and other plant-based packaging, on the other hand, uses a fraction of the energy required to make plastic, produces minimal carbon emissions, and naturally breaks down into the Earth with no pollution. So what IKEA may describe as a “small yet significant step” might just be the end-all answer to cutting plastic production and waste while protecting animal and human health.

The post IKEA Commits to Biodegradable Mushroom Packaging first appeared on Dornob.

A recent NPR feature pointed out that popular plastic alternatives like paper, canvas, and glass have worrisome carbon footprints of their own. The piece almost sounds like a public relations campaign for plastic companies, in fact, suggesting that plastics are commonly used to replace things that would do even more damage to the climate, so we might as well just find a way to live with it.

Of course, that analysis was completed by the American Chemistry Council, which isn’t exactly a neutral third party in the matter. It leaves out all sorts of possible alternatives with the potential for much lower environmental impacts all around, from production to the end of their lives.

Here’s one particularly cool example: liquid toiletries that are contained not by plastic or glass, but by solid soap. A designer and post-graduate student at Central Sant Martins Mi Zhou came up with this clever idea, reexamining the usefulness of packaging and what we should expect from it.

Developed for the Materials Future program and exhibited in the school’s degree show between June 19th and 23rd, 2019, “Soapack” is solid enough to safely house liquid contents like shampoo, hand soap, and body wash, looking a bit firmer than typical soap. While the designer doesn’t specify the exact shelf life of this material or whether it’s made from anything more complex than standard solid soap, it seems substantial enough to do the job it was meant to do and then some.

The resulting products also offer two-for-one functionality, allowing you to use the bottles like bars of soap when the liquid is gone. Plus, the packages are just plain beautiful, resembling vintage faceted glass perfume bottles. If there’s one caveat to the idea, it’s the potential for higher pricing, but soap doesn’t necessarily cost much more to produce than common packaging materials anyways.

The brilliance of this eco-friendly packaging concept lies not only in its extra value to the end user, but also in the fact that there’s ultimately nothing to dispose of. There’s not even anything the consumer needs to reuse or recycle, which is ultimately what we should be aiming for as much as possible. To that end, it calls to mind innovations like edible packaging made of seaweed or sugar, which could help eradicate the need for a lot of single-use plastics as well as cardboard and glass.

It’s true that traditional materials like paper and canvas aren’t necessarily better for the environment than plastic, especially if we’re producing far too much of them in the first place and failing to properly reclaim them when their usefulness to the consumer has ended. But all manner of fascinating materials are currently in various stages of development, including “liquid wood,” algae-based water bottles, and a number of mushroom-based concepts.

These breakthroughs tell us that plastic is no longer the material of the future, but rather something we should leave in the past and move beyond.

The post Plastic-Free Packaging Wraps Liquid Toiletries in Solid Soap first appeared on Dornob.

The shell of a bird’s egg is one of our planet’s most marvelous small wonders. Researchers examining its fascinating properties have called it “nature’s technical ceramic,” noting its ability to protect its contents from both mechanical and microbial attacks while remaining breathable, regulating respiration, and allowing evaporation. It also stores calcium for the embryo to use for growth, and while it’s fragile enough to be broken by the beak of the emerging baby bird, it can also withstand the pressure of a mother bird’s entire bodyweight.

All of these properties make the eggshell a prime candidate for biomimicry when it comes to designing innovative biodegradable packaging for consumables like food, beverages, and personal care products. And while we’ve yet to see any such eggshell-inspired packaging take off on a large scale, designers are working on all kinds of projects that take this natural material into account. In one stunning example, the Germany-based Studio Basse Stittgen demonstrates how broken bits of used eggshells could help strengthen a new kind of bioplastic.

The studio says: “Annually, an average of 6.4 billion hens lay 1.1 trillion eggs. Simultaneously, one-third of all food per year is lost or wasted, which includes eggs that have short shelf lives and whose fragile shells are not the most suitable protection against processing and transport. From domestication to industrialization, the value of chicken and their eggs has progressively decreased, [with] the shift in human interaction with animals [going] from cohabitation to first encountering them dead and dissected served on plates.”

“In the project ‘How Do You Like Your Eggs,’ the content becomes container, [and] an egg cup is produced from discarded eggs. It explores the extraordinary materiality of an ordinary item of consumption.”

Stittgen’s project aims to generate awareness about the waste of eggs on many scales, but [it] also point[s] out just how much non-biodegradable plastic we use every day and how easily we could replace it with something healthier for the planet. “How Do You Like Your Eggs” uses expired egg whites and shells to produce thermoformed bioplastic cups with zero other additives. That’s it — just eggs.

“In today’s context, traditional non-degradable plastics are highly problematic, especially because of our throw-away culture; opposed to that in this project, a new, fully degradable bioplastic is used to create a narrative about consumption and waste,” says Stittgen. “This can be seen as a novel approach to how plastic can be a conveyor of meaning rather than a pollutant.”

The resulting containers look quite strong, and it would be interesting to see how they held up after long periods of everyday use. It’s just the latest intriguing concept for bioplastics that could offer new ways to transport and store products on their way to consumers, including materials that take inspiration from nature like edible sugarcane packaging shaped like fruit skin and disposable tableware made of discarded avocado pits. There’s even a type of bioplastic made of “liquid wood” that has all the malleable properties of plastic while being 100-percent recyclable and renewable.

The technology to produce such materials already exists, but putting the pressure on manufacturers to invest in our collective future by making the shift to biodegradable packaging is entirely up to us.

The post Eggshells: Turning Nature’s Ideal Container Into a New Bioplastic first appeared on Dornob.

Skip the stylish brands on the shelves and overlook the stylized logos — this brand is speaking right to you in direct (and rather humorous) statements printed in simple font against bare one-color backgrounds. It’s a creative solution that proves graphic design doesn’t have to be flashy to be effective.

This is not exactly debranding in a pure sense, but close to it. The ‘logo’ – if it can be called that – is not in any special typeface and simply tells you the store name and web address. The ‘brand’ is built on sayings that are generic and overused to the point of being funny only when employed with this simple implied sarcasm.

Mucca Design (photos via EatMeDaily) wanted to do something different to make a local store stand out from its surroundings – and let you bring the sense of humor imbued in their packaging designs back home to stock in your own cupboards for future use.

By appealing to the trendy anti-brand movement these designers manage to blend kitsch, cliche and humor in a creative new way. This is a trend that might feel overplayed very soon, but for now, it’s fun and fresh, and might just get thousands of Brooklynites and tourists to stop at this little market instead of the mega store down the street.

“Mucca was asked to develop a brand strategy for a new gourmet market opening in Brooklyn. Our competitive analysis and neighborhood survey revealed that Brooklynites preferred the personal attention and service of local stores. So our branding strategy positioned this new grocery store as the go-to resource for the locals – one that was just as approachable as the bodega down the street.”

“Following a detailed naming process, we established an engaging copywriting tone that become the star of the brand. Its sharp, irreverent New York voice asserts itself across all applications, from digital to environmental.”

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Made entirely from seaweed, each Ooho pod biodegrades in just four to six weeks — about the same amount of time it takes a piece of fruit to fully decompose. Every part of the pod is edible, and it can even be flavored and colored if you feel like working a little variation in. The pods have a shelf-life of just a few days to ensure that the water within them stays fresh. On top of all of that, they’re also cheaper and cleaner to produce than plastic bottles, yielding five times less carbon dioxide and nine times less Energy vs PET.

The pod itself is comprised of a flexible casing that will eventually be used to package not just water, but also soft drinks, spirits, cosmetics, and condiments. This casing has no natural taste and can either be consumed fully or thrown into compost. It’s really just meant to keep the pod clean, so you’ll have no problem peeling it off like a fruit should you feel like it. The company thinks the design will be particularly popular with those who take part in marathons and other sporting events where quick bursts of water are needed to keep going.

Ooho has already replaced standard sauce packets in The Fat Pizza, a UK based fast-food eatery, after a successful six-week trial run with Just Eat UK. The Skipping Rocks team also celebrated World Water Day with a pop-up stand in Selfridges, where they handed out an assortment of different-colored biodegradable vessels to show people all the ways that on-the-go water can exist without being detrimental to the planet.

Who’s Behind the Skipping Rocks Lab?

The Skipping Rocks Lab is a sustainable startup based in London. They specialize in creating resourceful packaging using materials extracted from plants and seaweed, with the eventual goal of completely eradicating objects that have negative environmental impacts and stopping some 300 million kilograms of carbon dioxide a year from ever being emitted into our atmosphere.

In 2014, the Lab was awarded the Lexus Design Award and the Environmental World Technology Award, which itself is held in association with Fortune and TIME. Later, they went on to win the 2015 SEA Award and the 2016 UK Energy Globe Award.

How to Get Involved

Ooho is still in its very early days, which means that its currently only available at certain events across the globe. So far, the edible water pods have been distributed in London, San Francisco, and Boston, making appearances at conferences, private functions, festivals, and pop-up stores. If you’re interested in learning more about the product, you can contact the company directly through their website.

The post Ooho: The Edible Water Pod first appeared on Dornob.

Unfortunately, the dream that plastic could protect the natural world from humanity slowly turned into a nightmare. Today, it’s seen as a monster out destroy the planet — which is exactly why a new material by crafting plastics! studio (CPS) seems perfectly poised to save the day.

The Composition

CPS’ amazing bioplastic is made from three simple ingredients: sugar, cornstarch, and recycled cooking oil. The designers claim that their material, called “Nuatan,” could ultimately replace “all the packaging we know.”

First introduced at a London Design Festival exhibition, Nuatan is being touted as much stronger and more resilient than existing bioplastics, with a chemical structure that safely breaks down when consumed, mulched, or composted. CPS Designer Vlasta Kubušová confirmed that once Nuatan has been sanctioned with a food-safety credential, it could be used for food and drink packaging, making its utilization potential nearly unlimited.

How Nuatan Came About

Material scientists at the Slovak University of Technology spent six years researching and refining the Nuatan formula. Nuatan is a combination of two diverse biopolymers, polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) and polylactic acid (PLA). The former is created by microorganisms when they metabolize corn starch, while the latter is a natural plastic made from corn starch.

After conducting extensive experiments on the bioplastic, the researchers determined that Nuatan could be used in several different fields, including (but not limited to) 3D printing, injection molding, and the creation of conventional blow-formed plastic. It’s also been reported to reliably hold in temperatures exceeding 212° Fahrenheit (100° Celsius) and maintain its structural integrity for up to 15 years.

These properties make Nuatan the perfect replacement for all the plastic products out there that are currently under fire for being harmful to the environment, including straws, grocery bags, and water bottles.

But Wait, There’s More!

Not only can fish and other water creatures safely consume Nuatan, but so can humans. Since it contains no carbon-based raw materials (like most other plastics do), it’s virtually harmless to living things, degrading inside the body upon consumption. Nuatan’s biodegradability also makes it conducive to industrial composting.

So What’s the Hold Up?

Money. Since it’s only used in a select number of products, the production costs are pretty high. That’s why CPS designers are actively searching for collaborators and investors to assist in product development and boost demand for Nuatan.

Kubušová explains: “We are hoping to find collaborators who want to include it in the right products, and not combine it with other materials, so it’s a mono-material. If we can find the right collaborators, it can change things a lot.”

CPS introduced Nuatan’s wonders by using it to produce luxury products, which are typically less influenced by raw material costs. Two years ago, the company created eyeglasses whose frames were colored using natural pigments like turmeric, indigo, and coffee waste.

Kubušová is hopeful. “We started with value-added products where the material price doesn’t make too much difference,” he says. “We hope that these products can create bigger demand so the price can come down.”

The post Edible Plastic Could Change Pollution as We Know It first appeared on Dornob.

The words “healthy lifestyle” are so very rarely used in connection with “McDonald’s” that putting them together sounds like kind of a joke. But in keeping with a worldwide trend of increasingly healthy lifestyles, McDonald’s new takeout containers that hang securely on your bike’s handlebars.

The fast food giant worked with Argentinian ad agency Tribal Buenos Aires to create the unique packaging. The folding cardboard container has compartments to keep the sandwich and fries separate along with a hole in the bottom to carry a drink. Everything is held securely so it doesn’t get too banged up during the ride. You’re out of luck if you want to order a salad.

The recyclable container has a cutout at the top that slips easily onto your handlebars. It’s light and compact enough that it won’t add much weight to your ride, and it won’t get in your way while you’re pedaling. McDonald’s rolled out the packaging in Copenhagen, Denmark and Medellin, Colombia. They plan to introduce it in Amsterdam and Tokyo – all four cities are known for their high concentration of cyclists.

More from Phaidon:

“Made of recyclable card, the container opens flat to reveal two compartments for solid food, with the cup of drink lodged securely in a circular hole in the base of the box. Integrated into the top of the box, which is a sea-green colour and carries the McBike logo in orange, is a convenient hook. With the number of big city cyclists hugely on the up, we can’t believe somebody hasn’t done this before. All in all, it’s a great way of ensuring that  tonight’s ‘supper’ is not your last.”

About Tribal Buenos Aires:

“Tribal DDB Worldwide is a digitally centric global advertising agency, headquartered in New York. But you can find them pretty much anywhere: with more than 56 offices spanning 38 countries throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific region, they’re never far from your front door. The first digitally centric agency to win the Grand Prix in Film at the International Advertising Festival at Cannes in 2009, and also the first digitally centric agency to ever win Global Agency Network of the Year from Advertising Age in 2007. Tribal DDB Worldwide is part of Omnicom Group’s DDB Worldwide.”

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Game of frisbee? Pint of beer with a couple friends? Why not both?

Most product packaging is meant to be used once and then thrown away or recycled. It seems a pity to let still-usable materials go to waste, and designer Simon Kern agrees. He created Frisbeer as a way to carry beers for yourself and a couple of friends (or three beers just for you if it’s that kind of day) – then when it has served its first purpose, it turns into a fun toy.

As can be inferred from its name, Frisbeer is a disc-shaped object that’s made to fly. It can hold up to three beers at a time and comes with three finger holes in the center for transporting your drinks from one place to another. Once your beers are removed, the holes in the cardboard disc help it easily sail through the air.

The game Frisbeer is kind of like a weird cross between Ultimate Frisbee and Beer Pong. It involves sailing the cardboard disc through the air toward goalposts and either hitting or not hitting them. Simon Kern’s inventive carrying case is a student project and not an actual product, but it could be the best thing to hit music festivals one day.

“Frisbee is a connection of tray and a frisbee in one object, made from cardboard. It was design for Young Package 2014 design competition, where it received Prize of Slovak Design Center. The idea was to make a package, which after the usage will come out with another function, and so i wouldnt be necesarry to throw it away. Frisbeer is designed for the festivals, where is very useful as a tray, which lets a customer to hold three cups in each hand.After that, it can be used as a proper frisbee.”

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When you are preparing to propose marriage to the one you love, you want everything to be absolutely perfect. The box you put the ring in might not rank high up there on the list of considerations, but maybe it should.

Clifton is a highly unusual ring box from designer Andrew Zo. Zo has been fascinated by origami and unconventional building techniques since he was a child, and he spent more than three years perfecting Clifton’s design.

The box, when closed, is so small and thin that it can fit inside the typical man’s folding wallet. Open it up, though, and the ring inside spins smoothly and beautifully, almost giving the impression of a flower suddenly blooming. Thanks to its low-profile design, it eliminates the awkward bulk of a standard ring box in your pocket.

The starting price of $99 Canadian might sound a bit steep for something you’ll (hopefully) only use once. But if you’re going for perfect presentation there’s no doubt that the Clifton is far superior to the plain fuzzy velvet box you’d get from a jeweler.

“Clifton is a flat engagement ring case that easily fits into your pocket inconspicuously. At approximately 1cm thick, the sleek case presents the ring with a delightful effect similar to that of a flower slowly blooming. The Clifton case is a proud winner of the Core77 Design Award, Packaging Category (2015).”

“Clifton was designed by packaging designer, Andrew Zo. He was inspired after talking to jewelry designers as well as his friends that had been engaged. The Clifton Case received much attention from the media after it appeared on the front page of Reddit in September of 2014. Since then, The Clifton case has helped numerous proposals around the world.”

About Andrew Zo:

“Andrew Zo is an award winning, independent packaging designer. He combines his skills in structural design & graphic design to find the best solution for each project. He is familiar with the design process as well as the production procedure to ensure that brilliant ideas can be realized. Andrew’s designs are rooted in research and he believes that a good packaging design is also a great performer.”

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