This Startup Is Making Plastic Packaging You Can Eat Instead of Throwing Out (And It’s Good for You Too)! (VIDEO)

From the perspective of waste management, an ice cream cone is a perfect invention – the thing that is devised to hold your ice cream is edible as well!  So what if the containers or packaging our food came in could all be just that – edible? There is a company that decided to turn exactly that idea into reality – and their seaweed packaging can be eaten just like anything that is packed inside it.

Evoware is an Indonesia-based startup behind a new kind of packaging that is perfectly good to eat – but which also naturally biodegrades if you do not want to snack on it once your meal is over. “We want to create a cleaner world by stopping plastic waste from the root,” David Christian, co-founder of Evoware, told Fast Company.

Christian’s home country is second on the list of countries that create the most plastic pollution that ends up in the oceans and four Indonesian rivers are among those most polluted in the world. Looking from that perspective, it is very obvious that something has to be done about our plastic packaging obsession – and the company is a step in a right direction.

Seaweed, the material from which Evoware’s packaging is created, is obviously superior to plastic in a number of ways – it does not create non-biodegradable waste, it sucks up carbon dioxide while growing, it is grown without fertilizers, water, or any other resources. In fact, seaweed farmers in Indonesia are currently producing more product than they can sell, Fast Company reports, and they struggle to make a living.

While the details of the production process are confidential, the Evoware seaweed is tested for food safety and made into food packaging that can be eaten and dissolves in hot water without the use of chemicals. And the product is actually also nutritious since seaweed is high in fiber and vitamins – and it is also halal.

The Evoware packaging is already being tested – and tasted – for example at a food festival in Ubud, Bali, where a waffle vendor Bruxel Waffle is one of the early customers using the new packaging. So far, the seaweed product is more expensive to make than plastic packaging – but the costs will be lower as the company gets from pilot production to full-scale manufacturing. Hopefully, it will find many fans – and we will all have a chance to test it in the future.

To learn more about Evoware, click here.

To find out how to use less plastic in your everyday life, check out One Green Planet’s #CrushPlastic campaign!

Image source: EvowareWorld/Facebook