Bioplastic Packaging

Project developed for the Materiality module - Communication Design & Media (BA), Design & Business KEA

2016, Copenhagen, Denmark

 Overall problem

The fact is that goods, and especially food products sold in supermarkets nowadays use too many layers of packaging that end up in the end of the day in our trash, increasing the amount of garbage with every item purchased. In order to encourage people to reuse the packaging, we explored various ways how to create a packaging which can be used for another purpose and receive an “afterlife”. This change within the material would make the packaging’s life more meaningful by reusing it, therefore reducing waste.

Brief context

“One person’s trash is another person’s treasure.” Waste is inherently ambivalent. It is both worthless and the basis for a billion dollar, recession-proof industry. Disgust with filth both reaffirms our identities and troubles us. But a plethora of contradictory terms and values is not what makes trash wicked. Waste is wicked because of its inextricable mix of social, economic, environmental, infrastructural, political and cultural factors at a variety of scales.

With almost 7 billion people on the planet there will be an inevitable increase in the demand on the world’s natural resources. One of those resources is oil. Oil is being used for many things including the production of plastic packaging.

It’s not just lack of awareness of how much we waste, however, many of us are oblivious to the personal and societal costs we incur when we waste as well. In Denmark, we generate 759 kg of trash per person per year. So we are number one of the trash in Europe! “We’ve become disconnected from our products and so have lost our understanding of its value — for example, all the resources, energy and time taken to get it to us.”

Evidence

As a part of our fieldwork we researched alternative ideas for packaging design. We visited LØS market, a new alternative for grocery shopping: organic products, sold in bulk and without packaging. We noticed there is a growing need and that people are willing to either reuse their old packaging or buy long-lasting containers. We compared LØS to ordinary supermarkets in Denmark, and we concluded that is too much packaging! This conclusion was reconfirmed by a number of persons who we interviewed (target group, men/women, 25-35). They told us their opinion about the fact that we consume too much, that they are seeking for alternatives to reuse packaging, and that they all saw huge lack of communication within reusable packaging. Another insight that we received was that many of them are interested in gardening, information that rounded up our concept.

Concept solution

Our concept solution is a new packaging for herbs. Instead of throwing out the plastic that has been used for the packaging, we designed it so people can reuse it and turn it into a new plant, by using biodegradable plastic made out of corn starch, containing seeds and fertilizer. The bioplastic will dissolve itself through contact with water and the seeds will start to grow.

Packaging for herbs made of:

- Biodegradable packaging - bioplastic (ingredients: corn starch, glycerin, vinegar, water)

- Packaging containing seeds for future planting

- The seeds are visible through the transparent packaging (appeal to the visual sense)

- Packaging printed with natural ink enriched with fertilizer and nutrients for the soil

- Visual guidelines printed on packaging for an easy distribution of the seeds for future planting