BIODEGRADABLE BOTTLES ARE SUSTAINABLE ALTERNATIVE TO PLASTIC

Due to lack of information or interest, most people are unaware of the impact that plastic bottles have on the environment. To get a sense, bottles made of this material can take up to a thousand years to reach full decomposition. And the impact / waste becomes even greater when we realize that more than half of the plastic bottles are only used once, then thrown to the trash.

For the Icelandic designer Ari Jónsson to have knowledge of these figures was a hard awakening, so he decided he had to do something. "I feel there is an urgent need to find ways to replace the absurd amount of plastics we make, use and throw away every day. Why do we continue to use materials that take hundreds of years to disappear in nature, if we only use them once and then we throw them away? "Asks the designer.

After some research, the designer found the answer to the problem in agar-agar, a substance produced from algae. The origins of this compound go back to 1650, having gained a place of importance in microbiology laboratories in the late 1800's, where it is still used today to separate molecules.

To create a bottle from agar-agar, Jónsson simply mixed this substance with water. The result was a gelatinous substance that he heated before placing in a cold mold. The template was then turned into a vessel with ice water until the agar became formed and turned into a bottle. A few minutes in the fridge and it was ready to be used.

The bottle of seaweed retains its original shape until it is empty, at which point it begins to disintegrate, as you can see in the photo gallery. The designer says that this is a sustainable alternative to the use of plastic and that can be ingested at the end, since agar is a substance already used as a vegetarian substitute for animal gelatine.