BEYONDPLASTIC Coffee Talk

Shell Homage is a biodegradable composite material out of egg and nut shells without toxic chemicals. It is completely biodegradable and can decompose when no longer in use. It can be used in several industries as product design, interior design, consumable goods and jewelry design.Shell Homage is founded by the integrated designer Rania Elkalla and was initiated during her master research project. The material properties can be controlled according to the application from stiff, hard, transp...

Elena Amato is a designer from Guatemala currently living in Brazil. She is passionate about circular design, developing materials using biofabrication and thinking about creative applications for them. In 2019 she founded Ponto Biodesign, a biofabrication lab and design studio, where she has created sheets of bacterial cellulose with paper-like qualities as a sustainable alternative to the plastic packaging used in personal care products.The dried bacterial cellulose material can be gl...

THE SHELLWORKS makes home-compostable materials from seafood waste that degrade in just 4-6 weeks. After the product life-cycle the material will start degrading when placed in earth and even acts as a natural fertilizer for plants.They developed a range of products for their clients such as candle containers, plant pots, films, and plinths. Also, they license their technology to companies who want to manufacture products on their own.

LABVA stands for Laboratorio de Biomateriales de Valdivia (Chile) which is an independent, self organized community group. Together they go out in nature to study plants & natural materials and experiment creating new biomaterials by developing kitchen recipes or growing them.But the enthusiastic people involved in this admirable initiative do even more than designing new biomaterials. They have a holistic vision: In today’s world we often are disconnected from a product’s origin and its ...

Material Designer Paula Nerlich is developing a bioplastic based on aquafaba from chickpeas as part of her research into circular, compostable biomaterials. The material, which is currently under development, shows great potential for mechanical manufacturing and thus for industrial production. The biomaterial varies in color from cream white to pink and changes its color over time. However, it can be dyed with natural or food colors. The structure can be flexible or hard, the recipe is ...

Dopper, a Dutch Social Enterprise selling reusable water bottles, is on a mission towards a world with crystal clear water in every ocean and from every tap. Therefore, they launch initiatives like the Dopper Changemaker Challenge Junior, which is an international competition for children aged 8 to 12 that challenges them to develop solutions to single-use plastic pollution in our oceans. Children have unlimited imagination and creativity, which – if guided well – can lead to brilliant s...

Cinzia Ferrari’s PLANT plASTIC! is a fantastic packaging material that doesn’t contain any toxic ingredient and that doesn’t become waste: Instead, at the end of its use it takes a new life form by growing into a house plant.Packaging is not a passive dead matter anymore. It is alive and contributes to a better environment: By growing into a plant, CO2 is absorbed from the air and single-use packaging consumption is reduced as the user will grow fresh products as tomatoes that are normally so...

In Bulgarian public kindergartens, children drink water from single use plastic cups. As a result, the annual plastic waste equals 240 million cups and would cover half of the Earth’s Equator, if wasted cups were arranged in a line. This is an extreme case of throw-away culture that is being imprinted into children’s perceptions as a norm. From an economic standpoint, the produced waste costs Bulgarian citizens around 3 million €/year.The “Choose the reusable cup” project started as a local c...

Coolpaste is a sustainable packaging design that literally thinks outside the box. The designer Allan Gomes gave birth to an eco-friendly alter ego of our trusty old toothpaste.The tube is made of impermeable cardboard and the cap is made of biodegradable Polylactide (PLA), a bioplastic derived from renewable resources such as corn starch, tapioca roots or sugarcane. The Coolpaste tube itself has a tab to hang it in the Point-Of-Sale shelf. This makes an outside packaging obsolete resulting i...