Replace paper cups with jellobite edible biodegradable cups

Paper cups are often coated with plastic resin making them non-recyclable and keeping them in tact in the landfill for as long as 20 years. The paper cup is not much better than the Styrofoam varieties that have been banned in several cities in the U.S. and in Europe.As hard as they try, governments cannot legislate environmental responsibility.

One of the main problems is the lack of a viable alternative. Paper is not an effective alternative to Styrofoam. Paper cups and storage products consume massive amounts of resources to produce, causing many environmental activists to recognize and support the use of plastic cups over paper ones. With so much conflicting information, how do we know which products to choose? We need portable, disposable cups and take out containers, but none of these containers are environmentally friendly. What do we do? We invent something new.

Why Are Biodegradable Products Important:

Jellobite is definitely a step in the right direction toward biodegradable, sustainable products. After enjoying a drink, simply eat your cup or throw it away and the cup disintegrates in one week or less. No environmentalist could ask for much more than that. Biodegradable products are an essential element in the effort to reduce waste and land pollution. Products that naturally decay add nutrients back to the soil and do not linger, pollute and fill our overflowing landfill areas. We are running out of earth in which to hide and store our garbage, so be on the lookout for biodegradable Jellobite cups in the Summer of 2012.

Tableware Grown from “Food,” Saving the Planet One Cup at a Time

In the near future, maybe everything we need will be assembled on the spot in machines like Star Trek‘s replicators, but for now, we’ll have to settle for growing cups, plates, and packing material from food.

A few inventors are working on products that use mushrooms, rice husks. They’re less harmful to the environment and break down into nothing.

Ecovative’s rice-and-mushroom packaging, for example, is intended to replace Styrofoam and uses an eighth of the energy required to make a similar amount of the petroleum-based stuff. And we are working to bring edible drinking glasses made of flavored agar–similar to gelatin–to the consumer market.

Yes, cups from corn and the like have been around for years, but those products have their own problems. Products made from polylactide (PLA)–which can be derived from corn, beets, potatoes or wheat–can’t be recycled with the far more common polyethylene terephthalate (PET) used in soda bottles, and claims that the plastic biodegrades may have been greatly exaggerated. Could a gelatinous tumbler be any different?

For one, the feel is totally different.It’s slightly rubbery, very soft. And no, the cups made of agar and flavored to complement whatever you’re drinking, doesn’t get sticky.

Another product made from food–sort of–is Ecovative‘s EcoCradle, which is composed of rice husks and fungal mycelium–more or less mushroom roots, explains company founder Gavin McIntyre. His company fills a mold with agricultural waste, like rice husks or cotton gin discards, adds mycelia, and within two weeks the roots have grown to form a dense, lightweight network stronger than styrofoam and ultimately compostable, says McIntyre.