The new school year is now underway and it’s time to start thinking about what is in your child’s lunch. A fruit cup with a disposable plastic spoon? Plastic zip-top bags for sandwiches and veggies? Individually-wrapped dessert? A bag of potato chips? A juice box? All of these items have one thing in common: waste. In fact, the average American student generates 30.4 kilograms (67 pounds) of lunch-associated garbage each school year. Using some basic multiplication to factor in other kids at the school, state, and country levels, it’s easy to see that food packaging is a big problem. Even beyond kids eating lunch, much of our food is encased in landfill-clogging plastic.
Sweden-based designers Hannah Billqvist and Anna Glansén of Tomorrow Machine are trying to reverse that trend. They launched a project in 2012 entitled This Too Shall Pass that features biodegradable food packaging, some of which doubles as a vessel to cook and serve the food as well.
Food is cooked directly within the self-opening package and—as the name suggests—opens when the food is cooked to a certain temperature. The packaging can easily be composted after use.
The Sustainable Expanding Bowl consists of a cellulose vessel containing freeze-dried food. Adding boiling water not only cooks the food inside, but also causes the packaging to expand and open into a bowl.
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Story: http://www.iflscience.com/environment/meet-next-generation-waste-free-food-packaging