Photo: We Believers
A craft brew beer company and an ad agency have come up with a brilliant solution to problem of plastic six pack rings. What is the problem with six pack rings, you might ask? The plastic rings that hold six cans of soda or beer together in a standard six pack are so common, they are barely noticeable, and yet every year millions of birds, fish and turtles get caught in the clear plastic after the rings are discard in rivers, bays, and oceans. And the problem is huge. Americans drank 6.3 gallons of beer and around 10 billion gallons of soda, roughly half of which was in cans.
One approach to the addressing the problem is to make the rings solid, clipping over the top the cans. While that solves the problem of animals getting caught, the new solid caps are cumbersome and use more plastic. While they are designed to be recycled, it hard to say how many simply end up in landfills or the ocean. Roughly 80% of the plastic humans throw around away the world ends up in the oceans. Even if birds and turtles do not get caught in the rings, the plastic is still a threat. According to Greenpeace, approximately 70% of seabirds and 80% of sea turtles are now ingesting plastic. One study predicts that at current rates, by 2050, there will be more plastic than fish in the world’s oceans.
Now, We Believers ad agency and Saltwater Brewery in Delray, FL have come up with a brilliant solution. They have devised and have begun manufacture of six pack rings that are not only bio-degradable, but are also completely edible, safe animals and humans. The rings are made from beer brewing by-products and are said to be as strong and efficient as plastic packaging. The only downside so far is that the edible rings are more expensive than the plastic variety. Six pack rings that feed marine animals rather than kill them seems to be well worth a bit more per beer.
As reported by Amazyble.com: At present, the brewery is in the process of patenting together with a small startup of young engineers in Mexico. The social entrepreneurs believe that edible six-pack rings will have a huge impact on the CPG and Food and Beverage Industries. Of course, their number one goal is to save thousands of marine lives. The company writes: “For brands to be successful today, it is no longer about being the best IN the world. But rather, being the best FOR the world and take a real stance.”
Young engineers in Mexico – hmm. That plan could be Trumped.
Good Watch.
Great invention, and well worth paying a little more for whatever is packaged with them. Any chance this technology could be used for bottles themselves?
Read about this a few months ago, it’s a good idea.
I usually cut mines up before they go into the trash, but with 12-packs you don’t have them.
Making beer from sewage water:
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/wastewater-plants-sewage-to-suds-beer-brewing-challenge/
http://www.wlky.com/beer-brewers-plan-sewage-brewage/32637102
We already have a solution–the cardboard box. Cheap to manufacture, completely biodegradable and recyclable. I realize it isn’t as sexy or as lucrative to the inventor as biodegradable, edible plastic, but we’ve already discovered that most compostable plastics aren’t compostable, and that most of the new ways we are finding to continue our plastic addiction have unforeseen problems. I expect this stuff will turn out to be the same.