Sometimes we can get lost in the high-tech world we live in. It can feel like we’re more connected to our phones than each other or that we’re missing out on the real world because we’re too focused on the virtual world. While maybe that is true sometimes, technology isn’t all bad. You can list reasons but you can’t dispute the importance of the following items and their potential impact on a more sustainable environment:
LiquiGlide
Photo courtesy of LiquiGlide.com
Americans waste 28 billion pounds of food per year, which is more than 76 million pounds per day. That’s disgusting and extremely disappointing. If bottles could be manufactured to ensure that every drop of food inside counts, we could save an enormous amount of food.
Let’s break it down even further. There were approximately 124 million households in the US in 2015. Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that each household bought only 5 bottles of olive oil per year and from each bottle they threw out, 0.05 pounds of residue remained from the bottle. Pretty minuscule numbers here, right? Well, that’s 31 million pounds of olive oil wasted every single year.
Gif courtesy of giphy.com
That being said, any product that can help us cut back on food waste is worth it. LiquiGlide has created surfaces that allow sticky liquids to slide easily out of the bottle. The product is basically a multilayered surface that is then coated with liquid which allows the liquid product to slide over it with it.
Not only would bottles like these save millions of pounds of food waste a year, but with less bottles thrown out, less bottles will be in demand. That means this will also impact plastic production which is rising at an alarmingly high rate.
Biodegradable Hemp Bottles
Photo courtesy of flickr.com
The average American spends $1,400 on plastic water bottles compared to the $0.49 it would cost to drink the same amount of water from the tap. In order to fix something like this, reusable bottles seem like the best option.
Plastic is not the best option. It causes a plethora of environmental issues because, most importantly, it is not biodegradable. Neither are the other alternatives like glass, aluminum or polycarbonate bottles.
Hemp Water Bottles will be durable, have higher heat tolerance, and biodegradable. Additionally, the product will actually have a negative carbon footprint because the plant takes in more carbon during it’s life than the carbon produced when the bottle is made. That’s when you know.
Edible Spoons
Photo courtesy of bakeys.com
The amount of plastic dumped into our ocean every year is equivalent to dumping one truck full of plastic waste every passing minute. At this rate, the amount of plastic in the ocean is believed to outweigh the amount of fish by 2050.
Narayana Peesapaty has created edible spoons made of millet, rice and wheat flour. It will hold for up to 20 minutes in hot liquids so you can eat anything from cereal, to ice cream, to chicken noodle soup with it. You can also choose from 7 flavors and the spoons have a shelf life of 2-3 years so you don’t have to worry about them spoiling quickly in the pantry.
Additionally, if you don’t feel like eating it, you can toss it; it is biodegradable. It will decompose after 5 days.
Gif courtesy of giphy.com
But wait, there’s more. He wants his company to expand to other utensils within the next three months and eventually reach cups, plates and other disposable table settings.
Food Scanner
Photo by Santina Renzi
This scanner works through optical fingerprints. Supposedly in the near future the scanner will be small enough to fit into our phones, letting us scan any/all food items to check for a number of things ranging from calories to allergen levels.
Not only can this be used to lead healthier lifestyles but hopefully the technology will be advanced enough to detect whether or not certain foods carry pesticides or bacteria such as E. coli. It could also have an incredible impact on accidental hospitalizations due to food allergies.
Compostable, Biodegradable and Edible Soda Rings
Photo courtesy of Saltwater Brewery/We Believers
One million seabirds and 100,000 marine life animals die every year as direct result of soda ring pollution. It doesn’t even matter if the rings have been cut up because many of the animals can die from simply ingesting the plastic. The good news is, these new soda rings from Saltwater Brewery would be safe for any sea animal to ingest.
Anyone see Finding Dory? If not, minor spoiler alert: Disney makes a bold environmental statement by having Dory get caught in a plastic soda ring for a decent amount of screen time. This might be the last time at the introduction of these biodegradable and edible soda rings that are made from barley and wheat remnants, that would otherwise have been discarded, later this year.
So what’s the big takeaway here?
The future can be freaky, mostly because it’s just another unknown. And we like to be in control, it’s just how we are as humans. This is just the tip of some of the awesome ways humans are trying to become more ecologically friendly and live more sustainable lives.
It’s really important that we remain cognizant of how we take care of our planet because even the little actions matter whether that means using a hemp water bottle so one less plastic bottle is in demand or whether you use edible spoons for the rest of your life, what you do matters.