A new project called Reduce Reuse Grow is hoping to turn a major source of pollution into a positive solution that plants seeds!
The project hopes to build a plantable coffee cup that has seeds built into the actual design.
Alex Henige, a senior at California Polytechnic State University is the founder of the project, has created a kickstarter page to fund the new idea.
Henige says that customers would be encouraged to plant the cups wherever they wanted, and if by the chance the cup did end up in a landfill, or even on the ground somewhere, it would quickly biodegrade and possibly become a tree in the future. According to the kickstarter page the cups will biodegrade down to nothing in just 180 days.
“You’ve produced it. You now have the option to go out and plant it yourself,” Henige said.
The fundraising page has the following description:
We have developed a post consumer paper based cup which will be able to extract over 1 ton of CO2 out of the atmosphere annually once planted. We have taken those fibers from local recycling centers, which would usually be too rough to implement back into a packaging product, and created a cup that we are happy to truly name the most eco friendly disposable coffee cup. If you decide to throw away and not plant, no problem. The cup is compost certified and will be able to biodegrade within 180 days leaving the seeds and cup itself to turn into nutrients for other plants to enjoy!
The fundraiser has already surpassed its goal of 10,000 and will be a reality very soon!
