Ecovado is a more environmentally-friendly alternative to avocado

Avocado is one of my favorite fruits, even before it became the in-thing for hipster cafes and restaurants. Whether as part of your toast or as a dessert staple with condensed milk or as a guacamole dip, it’s one of those all-around fruits that I enjoy eating. But not all countries are avocado-rich and for those that have to import them, it’s actually one of the most unsustainable, energy-intensive, and resource-intensive crops. What if you could have the flavor and texture of it without having to spend as many resources and energy on it?

Designer: Arina Shokouhi

A graduate from the London school Central Saint Martins has come up with an avocado alternative called Ecovado. Basically it’s foodstuff made from broad beans, hazelnut, apple, and rapeseed oil and it’s trying to evoke the creamy texture and taste of the fruit. It is also packaged in avocado skin that’s actually made from wax and not the real thing, to give you the feeling that you’re really eating an actual avocado. It was created specifically for the British market as avocados are apparently hard to come by.

It was pretty challenging to find local, natural, and low-impact ingredients to create something that would taste and feel like actual avocados. The creamy flavor and texture is what some people find really compelling about this fruit so to create a substitute that will not come close to it would be a failure. Shokouhi worked with a food scientist from the University of Nottingham’s Food Innovation Centre to come up with this recipe for Ecovado.

Even though broad beans can be a bit bitter and have a bean-y flavor, they were able to reduce it so it will not show up that much in the flavor. They also added creamed hazelnut to bring the nuttiness and the creaminess to the foodstuff. Cold-pressed rapeseed oil was chosen as well instead of the more ideal olive oil since the former is more readily available in the U.K and is closer to the fatty acid profile of the real avocado. The “stone” part is actually a whole actual nut like walnut, chestnut, or hazelnut, depending on what’s available.

Even the packaging of the Ecovado is biodegradable and compostable as it’s made of wax with food coloring. You can even upcycle it to a candle in case that’s your favorite color or there’s an actual scent coming off of it. As to whether people would buy this avocado alternative, I’m still glad I don’t have to settle for anything else as the actual fruit is plentiful here over on my side of the world. But if you live in places where it has to be imported, then maybe it is the next best thing if you’re concerned about carbon footprint.

The post Ecovado is a more environmentally-friendly alternative to avocado first appeared on Yanko Design.

This sustainable material made from shell waste is cheaper & eco-friendly alternative to concrete!





Each year over 7 million tons of seashells are thrown away by the seafood industry into landfills. Shells are not biodegradable and have a very high disposal cost which harms the environment as well as the restaurant owners. So this innovative, women-run,  material lab called Newtab-22 created Sea Stone – a natural product made from seashell waste that was salvaged from the seafood and aquaculture industries. It is a sustainable alternative to using concrete – one of the biggest producers of carbon emissions – in the making of smaller products.

Sea Stone is made by grinding down shells that are destined for landfills before combining them with natural, non-toxic binders. This grants the material a terrazzo-like aesthetic. The aim is to make it a sustainable alternative to concrete in the design of small-scale products, as the two materials share similar properties. Seashells are rich in calcium carbonate aka limestone, which is used to make cement – a key ingredient of concrete.

The process involves grinding down the shells and mixing them with natural binders. They are then added to a mould and left to solidify into concrete-like tiles. This method is currently carried out manually to avoid the use of heat, electricity and chemical treatments and ensure the process is as sustainable and affordable as possible. It results in variations in the sizes, textures and colours of the shell fragments and means that each piece of Sea Stone is unique. You can get different textures by altering the number of shells, binders, or adding coloured dyes for aesthetics.

“Even though some of the seashells have been recycled and used as fertilisers, the majority of them are being thrown into landfills or by the seaside. The discarded seashells, which are uncleaned or rotten, have not been cleared away at all and they have been piling up near the beach for a long time, thus causing odour pollution and polluting the surrounding land in the long run. Sea Stone proposes the use of discarded seashells to create environmentally and economically sustainable material rather than contributing to the world’s rubbish problem,” explained Newtab-22.

Newtab-22 has experimented with an array of natural binders in the development of Sea Stone, including sugar and agar. It is now reliant on two undisclosed and patent-pending sources. The material is currently being developed for commercial purposes and has so far been used to make products such as decorative tiles, tabletops, plinths and vases.

While the properties of the concrete and Sea Stone are similar, to truly replicate the strength of traditional concrete required in large-scale projects like buildings, an energy-intensive heating process would be required. This would be comparable to the method used to make cement, which accounts for half of all the CO2 emissions that result from using concrete. “The power of the material is different, we do not want to harm the environment in the process or the outcome,” said Hyein Choi, co-founder of the studio.

Sea Stone is versatile, durable and a lightweight alternative to not only concrete but also plastic – it can be used to produce several objects while repurposing waste, reducing carbon emissions of the toxic counterpart materials and keeping the costs low. Time to find that girl who sells sea shells by the sea shore, eh?

Designer: Newtab-22

Using banana peels as a sustainable building material, you can now make everything from eyeglasses to watch straps!

Along with apples, bananas are the most popular fruits in the world. More than 100 billion bananas are eaten every year, with most of us consuming about 30 pounds worth of bananas every year– that’s bananas. But what happens to all the banana peels we toss out after eating the fruit? Generally, if thrown outdoors, it can take up to two years for banana peels to biodegrade. Sarah Harbarth, a designer based in Switzerland, saw the potential in turning banana peels into a sustainable source of construction material, calling it KUORI.

Harbarth was able to create four distinct products that are entirely compostable and made from banana peels. Harbarth’s first product shows a pair of eyeglasses that swap out a tortoise-shell frame for a banana speckled marble one. Then, in combining recycled PLA material with banana peels, Harbarth produced a 3D printing filament from which one can print anything they’d like. The third product Harbarth created through KUORI is the shoe sole made entirely from banana peels, solving the problem of micro-plastics rubbing off onto the ground as we walk in our street shoes. By replacing the micro-plastic that forms our shoe soles with banana peels, Harbarth created a sole that not only doesn’t disrupt the soil we walk on but feeds it as well. Lastly, in confronting the harmful practice of making leather goods, Harbarth designed a sustainable, vegan, and recyclable leather alternative, which she showcased in the form of a watch strap.

While the time it takes for decomposition to run its course depends on environmental factors, natural litter can have an adverse effect on critters that take to munching on fruit peels and therefore the environment as a whole. With all the bananas we enjoy every year, that same amount is then turned into waste. In order to lengthen the life cycle of bananas and combat the harmful and wasteful practices of making leather goods from animal skins, Harbarth was able to create goods like phone cases and watch straps entirely from banana peels. Upon recognizing the intricate ways in which we contribute to harming the environment through practices like leather making, 3D printing, and micro-plastic construction, Harbarth looked to using banana peels to produce goods instead.

Designer: Sarah Harbarth

By turning banana peels into an alternative building material, like leather, KUORI is sustainable, vegan, and saves resources.

“The result [of KUORI] is four products that are 100% compostable and made from the banana peel as an original food waste byproduct.”

In creating products out of banana peels like eyeglasses, KUORI feeds nature instead of taking from it.

“Due to the fiber composite of the Banana peel in the material, the resulting product has a higher stability compared to ordinary PLA.”

Most shoe soles are constructed using micro-plastics that rub off on the ground we walk.

“The resulting shoe sole is very elastic and returns to its original position. The material was poured into a mold and then hardened out.”

Confronting harmful practices like bleaching leather hides, KUORI offers a sustainable alternative.

“My concept represents a sustainable, resource-saving, organic and vegan, recyclable alternative to animal leather.”

This gear-adjustable manual wheelchair’s upgrade helps you wheel you uphill with ease

A wheelchair’s purpose is simple to understand, bringing the user from Point A to Point B on wheels. With this in mind, the brilliance of the wheelchair’s design is typically found in its simplicity, making mobility alternatively accessible. On its own, the wheelchair’s design is uncomplicated. The journey and terrain on which it moves, uphill, and through crowded streets, however, is ever-changing and unforgiving. Therefore improving a device, whose primary inconvenience lies in unpredictable factors, is ambitious. You Seong Kim, a designer with ROUSEED based in Seoul, saw that ambition through an even more adaptive wheelchair, the final design: Ascent.

Ascent maintains the usability and expected nature of the common wheelchair, only enhancing features that could be improved upon. For instance, the wheelchair is gear-adjustable in order to adapt to differences in gradient and terrain. The majority of wheelchairs in use are manually operated, which puts a strain on arm muscles, especially for the older demographic. To fix this, Ascent incorporates a moveable joystick that slides along a curved, triangular gear-track, allowing for easy adjustments according to forward, uphill, downhill, or braking motions. Suspension coil springs frame the chair’s perimeter so that any change in movement or weight is readily absorbed and unnoticeable.

Along with these acute mechanical improvements, the design of Ascent is more refined. In abandoning the uncomfortable aspects of the typical wheelchair, Kim has designed one that bridges usability with improved comfort levels. Ascent’s user-comfortability is emphasized in its slanted back and absorbent seat cushioning. Additionally, the wheelchair’s directional handles retract and unfold, only further proving the chair’s many adjustable functions. Lastly, the difference in sizing between the rear and front wheels makes it so that the smaller front wheels swivel, adjusting direction, while the large back wheels maintain the wheelchair’s equilibrium and balance for undisturbed movement.

Kim set out to design a wheelchair that prioritizes the user’s comfort levels instead of the changing terrain on which it rides or the many pedestrians who move through the streets on foot. Overall, the final creation broadens the scope of how improving the design of assistive devices can be approached. While the wheelchair that we’ve come to recognize and understand is uncomplicated in movement, it carries its own inconveniences – You Seong Kim designed Ascent with ROUSEED in order to mend them.

Designer: You Seong Kim x ROUSEED

While Amazon Fixes its Server, You can Shop Prime Day Alternative Sales at Best Buy, Walmart, Target and NewEgg


The 36 hours of Amazon Prime Day 2018 started as bad as possible at 3 pm ET. Amazon's servers melted under the traffic of Prime members trying to get their hands on the Prime Day deals. 40...