This biodegradable toothpaste + recycled disposable toothbrush combo leaves zero footprint on the environment!

Disposable paper products come in handy more often than we might expect. While it’s a responsible and sustainable choice to go with disposable alternatives considering their plastic rivals, it can also be a convenient one. Whether we find ourselves backpacking in the mountains, camping in the woods, or road-tripping across the country, disposable home products are lightweight to carry and easy to get rid of.

A team of designers based in China unveiled their own disposable home product, a recycled paper toothbrush called Cycle that even comes complete with biodegradable toothpaste. Made from food-grade recycled paper, Cycle boasts an environmentally friendly design that’s as physically safe as it is biodegradable. Cycle comes in sets, complete with a protective covering for the toothbrush’s bristles and a detachable sachet of toothpaste. Before use, consumers can remove the protective covering, and rip off the attached packet of toothpaste and once the job is done, Cycle can then be discarded without fear of harming the environment. Packaged in sets of four or five, Cycle makes the ideal travel companion for short camping trips or even indoor getaways that call for a couple of days’ worth of brushing your teeth.

With sustainable design growing in popularity and demand, designers have taken to recycled packaging and biodegradable construction material to home in on their commitment to the environment. The team of designers behind Cycle takes on this global sustainability initiative with a disposable toothbrush that gives value to a new mode of recyclable design, leaving no footprint on the environment.

Designers: Liu Ming, Qin Yimeng, Chen Yuxuan, Lin Weiting, & Yan Tian

Coming in sets of four to five, Cycle comes with a protective covering and detachable sachet of toothpaste for easy application. Users simply remove Cycle’s protective covering, detach toothpaste sachet, apply the toothpaste, and discard after use.

Rivaling only with pre-existing plastic toothbrushes, Cycle leaves no footprint on the environment.

A sustainable underground fridge + more product designs to help you lead that zero waste lifestyle!

Our unhealthy practices and way of living are truly harmful to the environment and have been slowly leading to its deterioration. And the world has been changing (for the worse) because of this. Hence, it is extremely important to live sustainably and consciously and to take care of the environment. Integrating sustainability into our day-to-day lives has become crucial! And we can do this in various ways. Designers and creators are coming up with sustainable alternatives for almost everything! Every product that is necessary and utilized by us in our everyday routine has an eco-friendly alternative to it. Replacing our usual mass-produced designs with these greener options will make a huge difference to the environment and Mother Earth! From a sustainable underground fridge that keeps food chilled naturally, to the world’s first sustainable workstation, we’ve curated a whole collection of sustainable product designs to help you go green!

Cellars have been used across the ages to store food or even act like bunker houses in case of natural disasters. Groundfridge takes that design one step further by adding fresh food refrigeration to the game. The trick used by Groundfridge is by utilizing the natural insulating capacity of the ground and the cooler night air temperatures. The balance of this design allows you to store your vegetables, fruits, cheese, and even wine throughout the year. Ventilating this project uses a fan with a timer that replenishes the cool air during the night. Too hot for comfort? An additional cooler can be used to power it during the hottest summer days. “The Groundfridge is dug in and covered with the excavated soil from its new location. This covering layer of soil is about 1 meter thick and has good insulating properties for the core temperature within the Groundfridge to barely vary. Furthermore, your Groundfridge is fitted with a ventilator.” I can see this system become a sustainable alternative in family housing societies trying to adopt a more eco-friendly style of living.

The Everloop Toothbrush from NOS tackles this problem head-on by using a recycled plastic handle and disposable bamboo bristles. Taking on a unique cradle-to-cradle approach, the brush comes with a plastic handle that is, in fact, made from recycled toothbrushes. At the very end is a clamping mechanism that allows you to attach 100% natural bamboo bristles to the toothbrush’s head. The idea is to retain the plastic handle and periodically replace the bamboo bristles every few months. The bamboo bristles have absolutely no plastic in them, allowing them to easily be disposed of, or composted in a way that doesn’t harm the environment.

Oquari is a biodegradable razor with comes with interchangeable heads that aim to provide a sustainable alternative that can help reduce the burden on the environment. The razor is made with PBS Bionelle as well as stainless steel blades as part of a regenerative approach and it degrades in aquatic environments. Its design is specifically geared at reducing manufacturing processes and facilitate the separation of its elements at the end of its life so that it becomes an accessible, attractive, and economical product without being recognized as “disposable” which the team refers to as  ‘monstrous hybrid’ – a term coined by

Inspired to create a standing fan that’s not white, plastic, and likely to end up on the sidewalk come September, design group Ttato built Aura. Minimal by conscious design, Aura’s build was stripped down to its bare components: cage, propeller, base, and motor. Built to be a home appliance that can be used throughout the year, Aura was specifically built for optimal functionality. Constructed with materials that were selected for their sustainability, durability, and beauty, Aura exudes a sophisticated air and follows that through with detailed functionality. Aura’s rotor blades, for instance, were formed from the overlaying and bending of birch and ash veneers, lengthening the rotor blades’ lifespan while celebrating the craft of woodworkers.

Pith & Stem describes its sustainable DropTop workstation as fully integrated and plug-and-play ready, meaning that it comes kitted out with a pair of 24-inch full-HD monitors and USB/USB-C cables for charging and connecting to Windows and Mac laptops. Beneath these monitors are two storage areas for said laptops or other odds and ends. The workstation itself is made from thick birch plywood that can be finished in either black or white satin, with the front folding down to form a desk measuring 120 x 60 cm (47 x 24 in) that is held in place by custom hinges, which appear to be rather strong.

Made from wheat husk for its base and PHA for the lid, Reuse serves as a fully compostable food container that not only amplifies our experience consuming takeout food but creates a conversation around our high-consumption habits and the negative effect they have on our environment. Wheat husk and PHA, a bacteria-based composite that works like a natural plastic derived from organic materials, can both be composted as food waste, without additional industrial-level composting facilities.

Nuclée is a lamp created from discarded banana flesh and it is….truly bananas! The minimal lamp puts the sustainable material front and center with a bamboo circle around it to highlight it. Banana fibers from the plantations are usually considered as waste after the traditional extraction process and cast aside. However, the designers were intrigued by this. material and found it fascinating when working with a lighting design concept. After empirical research, they succeeded in stabilizing the plant tissue using a particular refining technique and after applying different pressure as well as heat parameters. This new material is highlighted by shapes of bent bamboo, inspired by the internal structure of the banana tree stem and that is how the form of Nuclée mood lights came to be.

Switch is an award-winning toothbrush design with sustainability at its core. It allows you to replace only the brush head and keep the long-lasting metal handle. Manually replace the head by simply twisting the top of the toothbrush to remove and replace the head with a range of options. Switch is produced from recycled materials and the first of its kind available for mass production so it can make an impact quickly when distributed in the market. The design was one of the Red Dot Design Awards 2021 winners as well as a part of the iF Design Awards 2021. The bristles change color indicating that the head needs to be changed and ensuring effective cleaning.

CANNE addresses the problem of people not having the motivation to join a CPR course because of fewer opportunities, fewer interests, high cost, fast-paced lifestyle, and less awareness. CPR training also requires mannequins which are expensive and given the population of China, teaching cost is a big factor to keep in mind. The less qualified full-time instructors, short supply, and overworked skilled physicians were other significant barriers that were uncovered during research. CANNE addresses these problems with its cost-effective, sustainable, and easily accessible design. It provides a self-directed CPR learning experience for every citizen and can be broken down into two parts – a corrugated cardboard Basic Life Support (BLS) learning kit and a BLS self-directed smartphone app.

Eunsang Lee has designed 5A1, a modular, infinity room divider that can be endlessly reconfigured to extend the product’s life cycle. Feeling a sense of responsibility as a designer to create more sustainable products, Eunsang Lee turned to room dividers to reinterpret the classic piece of furniture. Today, new products are typically made from materials with short life cycles, leading to more consumption and waste. Constructed from responsibly sourced and sustainable materials like wood and steel, 5A1 is a minimal room divider, formed by hanging steel cables where steel and wooden modules can be attached and configured to hang clothes, mirrors, or even plants. Inspired by the act of communication between people, the 5A1 room divider comes with modules that can be attached, forming infinite configurations and a multifunctional piece of home decor.

This biodegradable razor let’s lead a ‘cleaner’ & more sustainable lifestyle!

Disposable razors are made of plastic and contribute heavily to waste and pollution. In fact, as per the report Award Catalogue 2020 of BEYOND PLASTIC, about 5,000 billion disposable razors are used per year globally – can you imagine that many razors in front of you for a second? That is an island-worth of waste and we are constantly looking for designs that remake sustainable versions of daily objects so that we are a step closer to solving this problem. Oquari is a biodegradable razor with comes with interchangeable heads that aim to provide a sustainable alternative that can help reduce the burden on the environment.

The razor is made with PBS Bionelle as well as stainless steel blades as part of a regenerative approach and it degrades in aquatic environments. Its design is specifically geared at reducing manufacturing processes and facilitate the separation of its elements at the end of its life so that it becomes an accessible, attractive, and economical product without being recognized as “disposable” which the team refers to as  ‘monstrous hybrid’ – a term coined by Michael Braungart and William McDonough for a product, component, or material that combines both technical and organic nutrients in a way that cannot be easily separated, thereby rendering it unable to be recycled or reused be either system. Most monstrous hybrids can only be thrown out and contribute to the waste stream and cannot be reused and therefore it is important to not view Oquari as a ‘disposable’ razor but rather as a sustainable alternative to the disposable razors.

“This is why we wanted to focus on a product that most people use while creating a dramatic environmental impact on our planet. Disposable razors, this kind of product has specifically a combination of plastics and elastomers. Which is rarely restore or recycled because of how difficult and expensive is. As part of our brief, we establish sustainable objectives that follow 7 of the 11 Rs of the R-Ladder: refuse the combination of monstrous hybrids, redesign better detachable pieces, rethink the concept of a disposable razor, reduce the use of plastic, reuse the razor for a long time, remanufacture materials for its use in other industries and recycle the package when disposed,” says the team,

Oquari creates a positive social-environmental impact because of the reusable handle that spreads awareness about the plastic waste problem. It encourages you to apply waste recollection strategies while generating more active learning and participation. Fairtrade is also ensured for users from socioeconomic sectors C and D because Oquari is made to be affordable. In addition, the constant consumption of blades ensures fixed income to the company. “Because our handle is reusable, raw material production and manufacturing costs are reduced. Likewise, waste decreases and benefits other industries by recycling discarded blades,” the trio elaborates. A sustainable lifestyle shouldn’t e a status symbol but rather an accessible choice so we can create a larger impact much faster.

Designer: Karla Valencia, Guillermo Miranda, and Erik Rodríguez

Sustainable product alternatives to mass-produced everyday designs so you can lead a green lifestyle!

The world is drastically changing, and it’s affecting the way we live and function. Although the irony is that the world is drastically changing because of our unhealthy practices and us! It’s now imperative to live more sustainably, carefully, and consciously. Integrating sustainability into our day-to-day lives has become crucial! And we can do this in various ways. Designers and creators are coming up with sustainable alternatives for almost everything! Every product that is necessary and utilized by us in our everyday routine has an eco-friendly alternative to it. Replacing our usual mass-produced designs with these greener options will make a huge difference to the environment and Mother Earth! From reusable totes made from fruit skins to the world’s first disposable paper razor, we’ve curated a whole collection of sustainable products that will have major functionality in our daily lives. It’s time to go green!

This gives a completely new meaning to the word ‘papercut’! Say hello to the Paper Razor, a sustainable alternative to the disposable plastic razor. The Paper Razor, as its name suggests, comes with an all-paper body and sports a metal blade-head on top. Designed to be flat-packed, the single-use razor comes completely unfolded and can easily be put together in a matter of seconds by merely folding in the sides and the top to create a rigid, ergonomic razor with a grippy handle. Its origami-inspired design gives it as much strength and maneuverability as a plastic razor while minimizing the use of plastic by as much as 98%. The result? A razor that can be easily flat-packed and shipped, used and then disposed of… safely, of course.

Using totes instead of single-use shopping bags can help reduce your carbon footprint even further if they’re made of sustainable materials. To offer a sustainable alternative, designers Johanna Hehemeyer-Cürten and Lobke Beckfeld made Sonne155, a reusable tote and sustainable alternative to the paper bag. Sonnet155 is entirely made from biodegradable materials to ensure that each bag can break down into water or soil. Hehemeyer-Cürten and Beckfeld constructed the tote bags from the composite of two raw materials: cellulosic production waste from the textile industry and pectin, which partially mimics the gelling effects of gelatin. Cellulosic production waste comes from cellulose, the structural cell wall found in plants, while pectin is a plant-based polysaccharide derived from the skin of fruits.

Designed by Carvey Ehren Maigue of Mapua University, these panels can be crafted into windows or walls which will harvest solar energy and convert it into electricity. Three things that made me instantly fall in love with this design are 1) clean renewable energy 2) using crop waste and 3) lower electricity bills. AuRUES was inspired by the phenomenon of the aurora lights which is a whimsical natural process that occurs when luminescent particles in the upper atmosphere absorb energy from UV and gamma radiation and emit it as visible light. The panels mimic this process by embedding similar luminescent particles in resin so that when the sunlight hits the panel it absorbs the UV and produces visible light. The light is then directed towards the edges of the panel where regular photovoltaic cells collect the energy to turn it into electricity. The colors of the luminescent particles come from dyes that were made from waste crops which makes this a closed-loop system.

The Dissolvable Noodle Packaging finds a unique, no-waste packaging solution for instant-ramen. Instead of wrapping the noodles in layers of plastic (with an extra plastic sachet filled with the tastemaker powder), Holly decided to develop an edible, spice-infused biofilm to package the noodles in. When you want to cook yourself some ramen, just insert the pre-packaged noodle cake into hot water and the biofilm dissolves in the water, turning it into a flavored broth! “The packaging becomes the sauce”, says Holly, who managed to design and develop her solution right in her own kitchen! The biofilm uses simple, edible ingredients like potato starch, glycerin, and water. “The ingredients are blended and heated until the mixture is at the right thickness. At this point, I add the spices and flavorings before pouring it into a mold to set for 24 hours”, Holly mentions.

Based out of Geneva, theGVA (The Green Value Attitude) is trying to perfect the ‘business model of paper’. theGVA’s notebooks aren’t just sustainably grown, each notebook’s purchase actually adds back to the environment more than it took from it. The ‘eco-friendly’ notebook comes with FSC paper, grown under internationally certified sustainable conditions, made from a combination of virgin wood pulp (cultivated responsibly from well-maintained and managed forests), as well as recycled paper. The cover of the notebook comes crafted from a uniquely tactile and smooth bamboo ply. Given how rapidly bamboo can be cultivated, the bamboo harvested for the notebook covers can be well accounted for within just a few months. The covers are left bare, giving you the freedom to either color in your own cover, or etch out your company’s graphic. The notebooks are all hand-bound and hand-stitched with leather spines, and complete with an elastic band to hold it all together.

unocup1

Not-so-fun fact: New York City alone generates enough plastic lid waste to cover the entire earth THREE times. To solve this issue and keep coffee from spilling on your clothes, Unocup designed an ergonomic paper cup that folds into itself to create a spill-proof lid! Just fold over each flap and insert the tab to close the “lid”. To open, it is a simple press of a button that will gently open the flap instead of trying to carefully pop off the lid – praying for you if you attempt that with long nails. This cup has a unique shape that fits into your palm, the uniform structure creates a strong and consistent body that will not cave under pressure, unlike traditional paper cups. The drinking curved spout is specifically designed to fit your lips naturally as opposed to the otherwise flat plastic lids. You can also fold flaps backward and drink from the rim just like a normal drinking glass.

The Prescription Paper Pill Bottle, a first of its kind, is 100% compostable and biodegradable. Its open-source design adheres to FDA regulations for durability, light, water, and child resistance. It’s available to any pharmacy for filling prescription tablets and capsules. Once used then emptied, the paper bottle can be tossed into any compostable bin with its Rx label to decompose and be reused as fertilizer to safely replenish the soil in fields, gardens, and landscapes,” says the team. Tikkun Olam Makers made it an open-source design which means anyone anywhere in the world can use their method and make their own paper pill bottles by downloading the .stl file that contains the attendant images and assembly instructions.

Gabriel Steinmann created P0 (pronounced pio like the letter and number) which stands for ‘project zero’  – a storage and shopping solution for food that aims to reduce consumption emissions. P0 helps us to switch to and maintain a plant-based diet and reduce the amount of food waste. The design blends organic and sustainable materials with an earthy aesthetic to invoke warmth and a more personal relationship with the items we use. Its ceramic body and textile lining help encourage a deeper appreciation for the food we consume and make us more aware of how much food we actually need to minimize wasting it. It is also a practical and attractive utensil in your kitchen – “a symbol of change, of becoming a little bit more human,” as rightly described by Steinmann.

Not-so-fun-fact: suitcases are not recyclable and end up in the landfill 9 out of 10 times. To combat this waste that stems from our love for traveling, a team of designers created RHITA – a suitcase that is super easy to assemble and disassemble which makes it easier to repair or recycle. RHITA’s simplified structure reduces the number of parts used in production by 70% when compared to traditional suitcases. Even the space needed for transportation has been reduced by 33%. It features an innovative hinge system and a unique installation method – no glue or rivet for fixation, no sewing of the inner lining, maximizing the space inside as well as a quick fasten and loosen wheel mechanism.

Element 0 is altering how shoes are designed and manufactured by making sustainability just as important as comfort. This means re-engineering the shoe’s materials in a way that benefits your feet as well as the environment. Element 0’s sneakers sport a unisex design built from both naturally sourced as well as recycled materials (the company is even transparent about where and how they source their materials). The shoes rest on an outsole that’s made from rubber as well as recycled cork, quite literally putting a spring in your step; while an insole crafted from a combination of wool, corn-fiber, wood, and natural latex gives your foot a comfortable surface to rest on that’s also water-absorbent and anti-odor. To cap things off, Element 0’s outer body balances aesthetics with breathability as well as sustainability. The fabric on the outer body is woven from plastic yarn sourced from recycled PET bottles as well as discarded fishing nets.

The Top 10 sustainable product designs that help you maintain an eco-friendly and green lifestyle!

The COVID-19 pandemic brought a whole lot of changes to our world, our lifestyle, and us. People are now consciously veering towards an environment-friendly way of living, adopting sustainability, and proactively engaging in practices that nurture our Mother Earth. In an attempt to support such initiatives, designers are coming up with innovative sustainable designs. So, we’ve curated ten of these designs that we think are the best of the lot! These designs range from a modular habitat system for bees to a device that helps you grown your own meat! These Top Ten product designs have been specially handpicked by us, as each one of them tackles a unique problem, providing inventive solutions, and encouraging us to lead a greener and cleaner life. They make sustainability easily accessible and achievable for us all!

This modular habitat system was designed to save the bees – it is their Good Place neighborhood! Bees contribute to complex, interconnected ecosystems that allow a diverse number of different species to co-exist. However, the majority of the 20,000 species of bees in the world face the threat of extinction. Amelia Henderson-Pitman designed Pollen which a modular system that provides a range of nesting materials to support the native bee populations and mitigate the problem. It can be installed in any location and has also been optimized for small spaces – the modular system can be integrated anywhere from inner-city gardens to exterior building structures. Each nest module contains materials like recycled hardwood, sustainable bamboo, or handmade mud brick. They have a series of holes that vary in diameter to provide nesting spots. The shell of the modules is an injection tube crafted from recycled HDPE and has been designed to be easily assembled as well as mounted without fixtures. The internal modules (molded from recycled PET) are transparent because it offers us a closer look at how the bees are adapting.

A tool used for firing clay in a kiln transforms into a minimalist bird feeder! This ceramic bird feeder doesn’t present a new solution for bird feeders but does present an approach for sustainable product manufacturing that solves a problem faced by many designers: the scrap material used during construction, like rings in clay kilns, that is discarded once the product is finished. Ceramika Design and Studio Kononenko wanted to make use of ceramic rings used when firing clay in kilns. The main element of the bird feeder is formed from ceramic – the frame and body of the bird feeder. Covering just about a quarter of the round frame is a plastic plate that functions to store plenty of food for the wild birds. Extending from the middle of the plastic plate is a wooden peg that works as a perch for birds to enjoy their seeds. “Considering that the reserves of this clay are limited, we thought about extending the life of these elements. We wanted to create a useful thing out of this. This is how a feeder for wild birds appeared,” says the team. The bird feeder is minimalistic its purpose rests not in aesthetic intricacy, but usability and sustainability. Each component of the bird feeder is replaceable on the off-chance that one is damaged so it can provide longevity.

Burfeind designed Sneature which is a sustainable sneaker alternative for the eco-conscious sneakerheads. The shoe is crafted from many waste materials. The yarn made of dog hair (Chiengora) is a biological waste being upcycled – this is innovation. Sneature is biodegradable as well! The design does take into account the functional requirements of a trainer and individual customization by the user. The process uses a 3D knitting technology that allows for customization and on-demand production while using the lowest possible energy consumption method. The membrane is a protein-based 3D knit made from dog hair. It transports the functional properties of flexibility, stiffness, and air circulation with a very second-skin feel, similar to the sock sneaker style we’ve been seeing. These materials have natural properties that provide water absorption and release and anti-static properties.

This device is designed to grow your own meat to reduce greenhouse gas emissions! FAO has proven that over 25% of the world’s land use is used for animal grazing/growing feed. In fact, 60% of global biodiversity loss and 15% of all greenhouse gas emissions are a result of meat farming and consumption. While the more sustainable option will be to switch to a plant-based diet, many are unable to make that change while still wanting to reduce emissions. To solve the inner conflict humans face as well as help the environment in the process, Turner designed Carnerie – a conceptual device that will let you grow your own meat in the future! Cultured meat is the process of growing meat from cells extracted from animals. Many experts believe that cultured meat offers us the opportunity to produce meat with significantly reduced environmental impacts and without slaughtering animals. The technology is being rapidly developed across the world and is beginning to be introduced to some high-end restaurants but there has been discussion about whether one day we may be able to grow our own meat from animal cells in our own kitchens. Carnerie is a ‘grow your own meat’ device for around twenty years in the future. It is controlled by an app, whereby the user is able to order cell capsules from local farms in order to grow a variety of different types of meat.

KAGURA was created by Chaozhi Lin so that environmentally conscious people can curate their very own self-sustaining indoor gardens no matter where they live. KAGURA’s system is comprised of three main working parts: a container for food waste, an elevated light structure, and three soil pots. The food waste container is located on one side of the indoor planter and turns your leftover food scraps into compost for fertilizer. Composting is a method used to decompose organic solid waste and fertilize the soil for gardening. The slim, attractive light fixture is situated directly above KAGURA’s garden pots and provides the mini garden with nourishing light-energy. The indoor, gardening system is completely self-sustaining and conveniently sized in order to fit into any kitchen or living space. The system itself works after food waste is dumped into the container on the left-hand side, fertilizing the soil contained in the trio of modestly sized pots, each of which provides energy for plants to then grow and thrive.

This mushroom helmet will grow on you as it grows. Yes, read this slowly and carefully: this mushroom helmet will grow on you as it grows. “What do you mean?!” you say and I assure you that statement is not wrong, there is an explanation for it. The Grow It Yourself Helmet is a sustainable product made from mycelium which is the vegetative part of a fungus. Mycelium is the thready hyphae that are tightly woven into mass branch-like networks making it a strong sustainable material. The network of filaments are natural binders and they also are self-adhesive to the surface they grow on. The entire process is based on biological elements that help in upcycling waste. The process of making this helmet also gets the kids involved in a meaningful activity that teaches them about sustainability and safety.”We have developed a helmet that can be made out of hay and Mycelium. It is 100% compostable, breathable, and impact resistant. The helmet reduces the use of plastics in a product that will be disposed of in a short time due to the child’s growth rate,” says the team at NOS Design. To further develop this design, NOS partnered with a company called Polybion which developed Fungicel (a patent that uses mycelium). This fungus grows like foam and therefore can provide cushioning at the time of impact.

When you think of furniture, you think of pieces made using the most traditional materials. We are conditioned to associate furniture primarily with wood, plastic, and metal so when we see products made from anything else it leaves us in awe. Vadim Kibardin decided to give an innovative, sustainable twist to it and designed furniture from paper. Why is his furniture a piece of art? Well, he has spent 5,110 hours making it by hand! Every piece of furniture that Kibardin makes is one of a kind, there is no mold and he shapes them all himself. We are now moving towards a sustainable lifestyle but Kibardin has been doing this for over 25 years – he has successfully recycled 2000 pounds of cardboard which is equivalent to saving 17 trees. To put it into perspective, 17 trees absorb 250 pounds of carbon dioxide each year and we need to ramp up the materials we use in design so that they serve a functional purpose while also contributing to slowing down the climate crisis. Using sustainable construction materials like paper and turning it into furniture that is stylish, modern, and eco-conscious is the future of long-lasting interior design.

An academic project gave birth to Coolpaste – the eco-friendly alter ego of our trusty old toothpaste. The aim was to develop a sustainable packaging design for toothpaste in a way that didn’t affect their durability while being transported or stacked on shelves. For the purpose of the project, Colgate toothpaste was used as the object of study. Coolpaste not only got a physical makeover that was better for the environment, but the graphic elements of the product were also refreshed to reflect the goal of the project. The paper box was eliminated after an in-depth point-of-sale study without affecting the integrity of the toothpaste. This made the product lighter, reduced waste, and simplified branding also eliminated the chemical inks making Coolpaste a success in terms of sustainable packaging and ecodesign.

Sometimes we think we are leading sustainably by just using metal straws or paper bags, but if you carefully look at your daily life, you’ll notice there are so many products that use plastic. The best we can do is find alternatives for them and support designers, brands, businesses who are working on making the future a better place to be. One such product is the iron and Indian designer, Saksham Mahajan, who has come up with a sustainable version of it made from bamboo! The designer started the project as a challenge to explore bamboo as a material, “Its sustainability can be exploited to make so many different things”, says Saksham – and we agree! Bamboo is structured, sturdy, easy to grow, and eco-friendly, in fact, it is used to make houses in Asia so why not use it to make household items too? The bamboo iron box was selected as one of the best entries in the Green Concept Award 2019 which furthers the conversation of using this versatile material in more products.

The world, as a whole, has started to care for turtles and has quickly moved on to use eco-friendly straws. The options are metal straws and paper straws. Metal straws are good for homes and for people to carry them to their office but it is an inconvenient option for eateries. So cafes and restaurants have adopted paper straws as they are easily recyclable and don’t require the effort of cleaning. However, the only problem with paper straws is that they get soggy and your drink will taste like wet paper and you might accidentally eat a bit of it – both things don’t leave a good “taste” in your mouth and can deter people from using sustainable straws. Straw Wars – sustainable products vs drinks that taste like paper, who will win? To solve this behavioral and environmental issue a Warsaw-based company has designed a better alternative straw made with dried stems! It solves the biggest problem we face with paper straws, it does not soak the liquid and it does not add any flavor to the drink – it is true. Stem straws work for both hot and cold drinks so we can make a collective effort to reduce the impact of plastic straws on the environment. The USA alone uses 500 million straws daily so you can imagine what the total global usage would be. According to the One Less Straw fund, every year, as a result of swallowing pieces of plastic debris, 100,000 marine animals and about a million seabirds are die. This is why we need to make the switch to sustainable straws, so if you keep losing your metal straw then get a pack of STRAWS which has 50 stem straws and comes in 100% recycled cardboard packaging.