SaltWater Brewery, a craft brewing company from Florida, announced its new edible six-pack rings. They joined forces with the marketing company Webelievers to find the perfect way to protect ocean life by solving one of the problems plastic poses on it.
There are numerous pictures on the internet depicting the results of plastic waste in our oceans, and the plastic rings that are used to keep together six-packs and sodas are one of the most dangerous. For us, they are just a practical and cheap way to pack our things, but once it reaches the ocean, the story is very different. For a sea turtle, some floating rings might look as food and it will choke after trying to eat it. Additionally, there have been a lot of cases of ocean creatures getting trapped or choked by them.
“Most plastic beer six‐pack rings end up in our oceans and pose a serious threat to wildlife. Together with WeBelievers, we ideated, designed, tested and prototyped the first ever Edible Six Pack Rings. A six‐pack packaging, made with byproducts of the beer making process that instead of killing animals, feeds them. They are also 100% biodegradable and compostable,” reads the front page of SaltWater Brewery’s website.
A new way of packaging was born
The problem seemed unfixable since plastic is very difficult to dispose of, however, the owners of SaltWater Brewery might have the perfect solution. They worked together with Webelievers to create a new way of packaging. Using barley and wheat, they manage to make six-pack rings strong enough to hold beer, but edible and biodegradable. The best part? Barley and wheat are byproducts of beer crafting which makes the process very cheap.
The new edible rings were first announced in a YouTube video on May 12 and it went viral after only hours of being posted. SaltWater Brewery is a small company that uses only natural ingredients to make its beer, but they hope, bigger companies will see the benefits of their idea and mass produce edible rings. For the Florida base company, every set of edible rings cost around 10 to 15 cents, but if the big names in the company join forces, this process could be much cheaper.
However, ocean life experts said that even though the option is better than plastic, studies are necessary to see the impact of a new kind of food in the oceans. Jennie Gilbert, co-founder of Cairns Turtle Rehabilitation Centre, said it was important to study the long-term effects of edible packaging before applying it for everything.
Source: SaltWater Brewery