sustainablestuff:

Plantable packaging by Ben Huttley

Ben Huttley is a Visual Communication designer based in U.K. He made this beautiful, well designed, recyclable and BIO packaging

Through experimentation and innovation I have developed a form of packaging that is 100 percent biodegradable and recyclable. If the packaging is discarded it will have a positive effect on the environment due to the seed embedded biodegradable paper. The twine used to secure the product and label is natural cotton and 100 percent biodegradable. The labels themselves have been produced using a laser cutting machine. This eliminates the use of harmful printing ink, as well as giving the packaging an esthetically pleasing organic look and feel.

 

As lovely as this is, and it is very lovely, there are some really glaring points I would just like to clarify;

1. ‘Harmful inks’ - well most printers will use environmentally friendly inks these days, you can even get soya based inks.

2. The label is all well and good being promoted as good for the environment, but laser cutter is very energy inefficient.

3. And the most important one in my eyes, Why on earth if this is promoting ‘sustainable’ or ‘recycling’ or having ‘a positive effect on the environment’ is there packaging at all??

The biggest packaging problem in the world is all the unnecessary packaging that is used on products that do not need need it. A bundle of 5 carrots or asparagus stalks does not need packaging. Pointless.