Iceland: A student invents a 100% biodegradable bottle

If we take the trouble to go further than the simple prototype, this is undoubtedly a good news for the planet. An Icelander has presented an invention at a design festival in March 2016. The bottle is completely biodegradable and loses its strength when it is empty.

A discovery that could change our consumption. Ari Jonsson, a student at the Academy of Arts in Reykjavik, created a bottle made from seaweed, agar-agar.

The peculiarity of the bottle is that it is strong as long as it contains liquid. Once emptied, it disintegrates. This feature is possible thanks to the agar. This is also an algae that is used in cooking dishes to prepare jelly.

Once the right proportions found, the student has warmed and poured the substance in a bottle shaped mold kept in the fridge. Then rotating the mold within a bucket of ice water, the liquid has taken the form of bottle. The mold was placed in the fridge for a few minutes until the agar bottle is extracted. The result: a healthy and biodegradable plastic bottle. But it has a major characteristic: it remains strong until it is full and begins to decompose soon empty.

It allows a total breakdown and is even edible.

Another feature of the bottle, if water is consumed after a while, it gradually takes the natural flavor of the bottle. Ari Jónsson told that those who would be pleased with the taste should even bite into the bottle. If the production process may seem archaic, it works perfectly and is waiting to be developed.

Using plastic is not only bad for your health, it is also bad for the environment. 89 billion plastic bottles are sold every year worldwide. Only 26% is recycled! Ari Jonsson recalls another observation: “I read that 50% of plastic is only used once and then thrown and I feel there is an urgent need to find ways to replace part of the unreal amount of plastic we make, use and reject every day.”