AWARD YEAR
2021
CATEGORY
Community
GOALS
Life Below Water
KEYWORDS
Plastic pollution , ocean, biodegradability
COUNTRY
United States of America
DESIGNED BY
Saltwater Brewery
WEBSITE
https://saltwaterbrewery.com
Edible Six-Pack Rings
Edible Six-Pack Rings to Protect Marine Animals
For tiny scraps of plastic, six-pack rings can pose a huge threat to marine life. Small enough and ubiquitous enough that they’re easy to discard and forget about, the little plastic webs all too often make their way to the ocean, where animals can ingest or become trapped in them. In order to combat that problem, Florida-based Saltwater Brewery has created what they say is the world’s first fully biodegradable, compostable, edible six-pack rings.
The edible rings are made of barley and wheat and are, if not necessarily tasty, at least safe for animals and humans to ingest. Saltwater Brewery started packaging their beers with the edible six-pack rings in 2016. They charge slightly more for their brews to offset the cost of the rings' production. They hope that customers will be willing to pay a bit more for the environmentally friendly beers and are encouraging other companies to adopt the edible six-pack rings in order to lower manufacturing prices and save more animals.