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

From National Geographic’s Green Guide, Thursday, July 29, 2010:

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, and even agar to create new versions of single-use disposable items. 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 product design consultancy The Way We See The World is working to bring edible drinking glasses made of flavored agar–similar to gelatin–to the consumer market.

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