Tag Archives: compostable

This compostable iPhone case can be potted to grow plants and flowers

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Although smartphone manufacturers design their phones to be durable and resilient, a lot of owners still fret over the safety of their expensive purchases. Phone cases are a dime a dozen, but while that might be good for variety and choice, it’s terrible for the planet. These accessories are almost all made from some form of plastic or another, and they get discarded left and right the moment they become discolored or damaged. Very few manufacturers pay close attention to this aspect because of how protective cases have to be made cheap and plenty. Fortunately, there is a number that does take that responsibility quite seriously, producing this revolutionary iPhone case that you can plant in the soil after it has reached its end of life to watch it grow into new life as plants and flowers.

Designer: iGreen

There’s no rule that phone cases have to be made from plastic or plastic-like materials, they just happen to be cheap, durable, and long-lasting. They’re not immortal, of course, and once cases break or get discolored over time, they’re completely useless and have to be thrown out. That’s not even considering perfectly usable cases that are disposed of simply because they are no longer attractive or match the owner’s interests. Some manufacturers do have programs for recycling the plastics in these cases to make new cases, but iGreen Gadgets actually has an even more creative use for these discarded accessories.

For starters, the case is 100% compostable, so it will decay and dissolve into the earth when buried. The material is based on cornstarch, a very common biodegradable substance that’s also used in many plastic alternatives. Even the powder used to produce colors is also naturally based. Despite its completely biodegradable nature, the cases still provide the necessary protection your iPhone needs to survive accidents and avoid an early retirement in landfills.

The difference from other bioplastic cases is that each iGreen Cover case contains living seeds protected by a special water-soluble film inside the cover. Once the case has served its purpose, you simply have to plant it in a pot at a 30-degree angle with the inside of the cover facing up. You cover it with soil while leaving the upper half of the case exposed, water it, and expose it to sunlight, and within a few weeks, you will be able to witness your phone case transforming into plants.

Different case colors hold different kinds of seeds. Green will grow basil, yellow for daisies, and light blue for Forget-me-nots. The case itself, specifically the cornstarch, contains everything the seeds need to survive inside the case and then grow once planted. The plants that grow won’t be that practical. The flowers are mostly decorative, though basil can probably be used for cooking. Still, it’s a rather ingenious and creative way to reuse a product that’s often discarded mindlessly, turning a planet-killer into a plant-grower.

The post This compostable iPhone case can be potted to grow plants and flowers first appeared on Yanko Design.

This sustainable coffee cup can help your plants grow at the end of its own life

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Some say that the world runs on coffee or that coffee is what actually makes it go round. Regardless of opinion, there’s no denying how much of the brown liquid is consumed every day, whether at home or especially from coffee shops like the famous (or infamous) Starbucks. When taking the latter into account, you can’t but help consider the amount of waste the coffee industry is producing simply from the cups alone, whether plastic or biodegradable paper. More conscientious coffee lovers have switched to reusable tumblers to help minimize their impact on the environment, but that is only half a step better than using plastic drinkware. This portable coffee cup, in contrast, takes the product’s lifecycle into account and puts it to good use even when you can no longer drink from it.

Designer: Alex Philpott (Beta Design Office)

Most coffee tumblers today are made from a combination of materials such as plastic, rubber, metal, and silicone. While some of these might be considered sustainable, the sum of the parts isn’t. These reusable drinking vessels naturally last a lot longer than the disposable variety served at many coffee shops, but they still end up polluting the land and seas at the end of their lives. Definitely not a good way to give back to the Earth that produces the coffee beans and water that fuel our modern lives.

That’s where the Earthmade Aromacup sets itself apart. Using Bamboo-O, an eco-friendly material made from bamboo fiber and plant starch, these travel coffee cups offer a significantly more sustainable option than typical silicone or thermal tumblers. More than just the materials and processes, however, the drinkware’s life continues even after it is no longer usable, at least not by humans. It can be easily used as compost material at home, contributing to the healthy growth of plants that, in turn, could nourish our food or clean up the air at the very least.

Beyond its sustainability, however, the Earthmade Aromacup also offers practical features matched with a clean aesthetic. A user-friendly keyhole locking mechanism makes it safe to bring your coffee or any favorite drink with you on the go, while easy disassembly makes it trivial to keep the cup clean and hygienic all the time. The cup’s soft body and ribbed texture offer a comfortable and safe grip when you need to take a sip anywhere.

The choice of single pastel colors, applied with food-safe coloring via a sustainable injection moulding process, visually sets it apart from most travel cups. At the same time, it appeals to the minimalist aesthetic that continues to trend, making these cups an attractive alternative to common, mass-produced coffee tumblers that also let owners feel good about their contribution to the Earth’s health every time they take a sip.

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This biodegradable children’s building block game is made entirely from recycled rice husks

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Rice Husk Village is a modular toy game made entirely from discarded rice husk waste.

On a yearly basis, around 120 million tons of rice husks are discarded worldwide. The husk is the plant material that covers rice grains, which is ultimately discarded because humans do not digest it. highly resistant to natural degradation, rice husk has a large dry volume due to their low-bulk density and rough surfaces.

Designer: Subin Cho

Looking at this issue from an environmentalist’s perspective, designer, Subin Cho conceptualized a children’s toy called Rice Husk Village made entirely from rice husk to turn agricultural waste into meaningful products that can ultimately be composted back into the ground.

Cho notes, “Rice husk has large dry volume due to its low bulk density and possesses rough and abrasive surfaces that are highly resistant to natural degradation.” From an environmental perspective, this reveals why rice husks can be difficult to dispose of, but from a designer’s perspective, this plant material is ideal for creating products like the Rice Husk Village.

Constructed and molded from rice husks, the Rice Husk Village is comprised of shaped modules that stack together to form villages. Three different building types allow users to create different city fabrics, from skyscraper-filled skylines to small villages. A four-legged bridge, tree modules, and stairs also come with Rice Husk Village so users can really create their own unique toy village.

Cho’s design also features a balance tray that users can build their villages atop as an interactive game. The game’s initiative is to create a well-balanced, and bustling village fabric from the toys blocks made from rice husks.

If the village topples over to one side on the balance tray, then whoever touched the last block loses, in a similar fashion to the game Jenga. Considering the rice husk modules, the toy blocks are biodegradable and safe for the human body to consume on the off chance your toddler is getting a little chewy.

Children can even add a touch of greenery to their miniature village replicas. 

Once play time is over, the building blocks can be put back into the earth to be composted. 

Similar to the game of Jenga, Rice Husk Village is a stacking game. 

Children will have an array of different modular toy blocks to choose from when constructing their village.

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This sustainable packaging for eggs is inspired by stamps & made from paper foam!

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Sustainable designs, especially packaging designs, are giving designers food for thought – very literally in some cases – to find solutions that can reduce waste and the burden on the planet! The Stamp Egg packaging stands out from the rest because it is detachable and made of PaperFoam which is sustainable, eco-friendly, low-carbon, highly recyclable, and home compostable material – it is truly egg-cellent!

Think of Stamp Egg as having your eggs individually wrapped but instead of plastic, it is a super sustainable and compostable material. It has all the necessary elements for an egg carton – easy open and close, protective form, and stackability. As the name suggested, it is inspired by a postage stamp that lets you tear out individual pieces from the collection, and now you can do it with your eggs.

This form also helps you save more space in the refrigerator and easily count the eggs without opening the package thus keeping them fresh for longer as they are less affected by temperature changes. Also, the separately packaged eggs can be easily packed for a picnic or in a lunch box without compromising on protectiveness or playing Jenga with the other items.

PaperFoam is a studio based in the Netherlands that specializes in making environmentally friendly packaging material widely used in electronics, cosmetics, medical devices, and food applications. The bio-based product is made out of starch, cellulose fibers, and water all with a very low carbon footprint. It can be composted or recycled at home with paper. Curious to learn more about this innovative material? Read about the manufacturing process, detailed benefits, and more here! 

“After experimenting with the material to enhance its look and its mechanical properties, I had to find a proper application for it. I aimed at designing a mass-produced everyday object within the packaging industry, which proved to be a successful field of application for PaperFoam as it was resistant, natural, and could be customized with branding,” says Yoon. “The purpose was to approach this project in a sustainable way, think about a valid and meaningful alternative to already existing products, combine maximum efficiency with aesthetic quality using an environment-friendly approach throughout the whole lifecycle.”

Compared to the cellulose-pulp, foam, or plastic boxes, the Stamp PaperFoam egg trays are lighter (beaten only by the Polystyrene ones) and emit much less carbon dioxide compared to their competitors (96% less than pulp, 91% less than PS, and 87% less than PET). Easy to achieve with the injection-molded manufacturing process, the product is cost-effective, energy-efficient, high-performing, and attractive!

The carton’s dimpled form accommodates individual eggs and prevents them from coming into contact with one another. An improved hinge holds the units together and makes the cups easy to separate into single independent boxes which saves space and keeps them fresh for longer. The name of the brand and the nutrient contents can be directly embossed on the material surface, saving on additional labeling costs and making recycling easier. Stamp is egg-straordinary!

Designer: Il-Seop Yoon

The post This sustainable packaging for eggs is inspired by stamps & made from paper foam! first appeared on Yanko Design.

These sustainable lamps are made from coffee and orange peels!

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Lamps have the ability to truly turn up the vibes in a space when they are done right and Obscure fits neatly in that category. In fact, it elevates the lighting game because it is also 100% sustainable, cold-compostable, and zero-waste! The collection of lampshades manifests nature’s genius and demonstrates an intelligent, material-driven approach to eco-friendly design.

The handmade collection is created by a London-based biotech and biomanufacturing startup. It represents the close-knit collaboration between ‘maker’ and ‘matter’. The matter, Orb or organic refuse bio-compound, influences the maker whilst the maker prescribes the matter with geometry. As the matter conforms to the maker’s prescription, the maker’s geometry inspires the matter to bend and flow as it pleases.

Obscure is made of 100% coffee chaff and orange peel. The company behind it constantly showcases the potential of bio-manufacturing of natural materials and regularly uses excess resources/wastes and byproducts in their design to reduce the use of plastics. Orb is a combination of food and agricultural bioproducts with a plant-based binder.

The team is also working to address several planetary challenges at once – the climate crisis, waste crisis, and social injustice – through their work. They apply principles of biomimetics, or systematically applying the ecological laws of nature, to create products and manufacturing approaches that innovate across the entire manufacturing life cycle. And, therefore, to create ethically-sourced and locally-fabricated high-performance sustainable products.

“There has never been a more critical time to be doing the work we do at Biohm,” said Ehab Sayed, founder and director of innovation at Biohm. “Recent events have emphasized how our economies and systems are flawed and unsustainable, and that we need to immediately implement radical and regenerative biotechnologies delivered through equitable and compassionate business models to make leaps in the fight against the climate crisis.”

Designer: Biohm

The post These sustainable lamps are made from coffee and orange peels! first appeared on Yanko Design.

This compostable flower scoop made from peanut shells is an award-winning packaging design!

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Packaging design is so interesting but the best innovation always comes when great packaging meets sustainability! Seed Scoop Fertilizer is a prime example of sustainable packaging design – it is seed packaging that includes a scoop made of peanut shell material and seeds…natural materials down to every last element!

Designed by students from the Royal College of Art, this award-winning green design shows the practical process of how the compostable product was made. The user should take out the seeds first, then use the scoop to dig the soil out and bury the seeds in the flowerpot. Finally, the user could break the spatula into pieces, put it in the soil, and drip it with water, to make the scoop become fertilizer and give nutrients. Designing environment-friendly products have always been the mission of designers. We hope to let more people pay attention to the sustainable use of resources through this design.

Peanut shells are often discarded by people in daily life, but we found that peanut shells still contain a lot of nutrients and can be used as fertilizer. Seed Scoop Fertilizer has a flower scoop made of peanut shells and seeds. When using, the user first takes out the seeds from the flower scoop, then uses the flower scoop to dig the soil out and plant the seeds in the flowerpot. Finally, the user could break the flower scoop into pieces, place it in the soil, and drip it with water, so that the flower scoop becomes fertilizer to give nutrients!

Designers: Zhixi Dai, Zixi Chen, and Hao Yao

The post This compostable flower scoop made from peanut shells is an award-winning packaging design! first appeared on Yanko Design.