Bacteria could rid the world of packaging waste
Consumer and shipping packaging can be incredibly wasteful. Some companies are downsizing their packaging, but many products still come wrapped and boxed in ridiculous amounts of plastic, paper, cardboard -- you name it. One designer has come up with a way to get rid of the waste by wrapping objects in bacteria, creating a biodegradable, custom-fitting shell. Both gross and exciting!
Mareike Frensmeier just won third place in the Cargo Packs 2020 challenge for his bacteria wrap idea called Bacs. The packaging is made by covering an object with a culture of the bacterium acetobacter xylinum, then starting a sugar feeding frenzy. This creates a "fibrous nano-scaled cellulose network" that encases the object and keeps it safe along its journey.
The Bacs system can be manipulated to offer damp, gel-like packaging for food, dry, paper-like packaging or freeze-dried, foam-like packaging for the most fragile objects. Now, I'm not sure bacteria wrap will ever take off but the idea of a world free of packing peanuts sure is a nice one.
via Treehugger
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