Notpla is aiming to expand in Europe and displace 1 billion units of single-use plastic by 2030.
Notpla, the company which makes seaweed-based packaging to replace single-use plastics, started with its two French and Spanish founders, Pierre Paslier and Rodrigo Garcia Gonzalez, experimenting in their student kitchen while at Imperial College London.
Now, Notpla has replaced more than 21 million items of single-use plastic across Europe, and is aiming to displace 1 billion units by 2030. In partnership with Just Eat, Notpla’s packaging was used at the UEFA Women’s Final at Wembley Stadium, London in 2022. From seven types of folded carton board boxes that year, it has grown into a catalogue of over 50 different designs.
And the company is launching a new deli range, featuring plastic-free windows so people can see their sandwiches before buying. Honsinger hopes this will help Notpla branch out into office catering and museums, where that sneak peek is important.
From bio-based flooring to recycled fruit lamps, these eco-friendly designers are embracing innovative sustainable materials around the worl
When we think of sustainable materials, bamboo, cork, recycled stone and reclaimed teak often come to mind. These building and surface materials are used extensively in both residential and commercial projects, enough to solidify them as the eco-friendly future of established architectural practices.
But what if we went even further? Creative and experimental designers worldwide are embracing much more unusual sustainable materials in a wide range of projects, be these sturdy floorboards and insulating panels, or small-scale decorative elements such as lamps, trays, vases and other furnishings. With designs hailing from Singapore and Indonesia, as well as distant studios in Italy and Palestine, here are the materials of tomorrow.
Mogu’s mycelium floor tiles
Mushroom filaments may not seem like the sturdiest base for hardwearing floors, but the Italian designers behind Mogu would argue otherwise. Transformed into resilient tiles appropriate for luxury residences and even commercial spaces, the mycelium structure is topped with a layer of bio-based resin, granting it resistance to scratches and abrasions rivalling traditional flooring materials.
Orange peel and pine needles make up the sustainable lampshades by Caracara Collective
Turning orange peel into useable furnishings and décor pieces is no small feat, yet the people behind the circularity-focused Caracara Collective in Finland have mastered this singular art. Inspired by the abundance of the natural, inherently sustainable materials around them, the designers created a series of lampshades made of orange peel, as well as pine needles from discarded Christmas trees.
As the collective puts it: “It takes around 20 squeezed oranges to create one lampshade. In other words, each lampshade is the by-product of someone drinking two litres of orange juice.”
Markos Design’s Ostra lamp, made of discarded oyster shells
Discarded oyster shells are similarly repurposed on the island of Cyprus, transformed by Markos Design into Ostra, a ceramic-like biomaterial. Ostra is worked into statement lamp designs, naturally hardwearing thanks to the oysters’ high concentration of calcium carbonate, which also lends cement and concrete considerable strength.
EU-funded researchers are cultivating fungi on agricultural waste to create smarter and greener construction materials able to adapt and rea
Wösten is part of a team of researchers from Belgium, Denmark, Greece, the Netherlands, Norway and the UK who are exploring a radical idea: what if the materials we build with could grow, repair themselves, and even sense their environment?
This EU-funded research initiative, called Fungateria, is developing engineered living materials (ELMs) by fusing fungal mycelia with bacteria — creating adaptable, self-healing materials that do what conventional products cannot.
Unlike traditional materials like concrete or plastic, ELMs can grow, repair themselves, sense changes in their environment, and sometimes even adapt over time.
The researchers aim to design these materials so that they combine the strength of natural growth with the functionality of engineering. For example, walls that fix their own cracks, building blocks that absorb CO2, or surfaces that can clean the air.
The goal is to create sustainable, low-waste materials that work with nature instead of against it, opening the door to smarter, greener architecture and products.
“Already we can make leather-like materials or insulation panels from these extended fungal networks,” said Wösten. “Now we want to go to the next stage and grow buildings, but in a controlled way.”
The rigid yet biodegradable plastic outperforms not only alternative biodegradable options, but plastic itself for mechanical strength.
Dawei Zhao at Shenyang University of Chemical Technology in China’s far northeast has developed a method for turning cellulose from bamboo into a rigid yet biodegradable plastic that outperforms not only alternative biodegradable options, but plastic itself for mechanical strength and thermo-mechanical properties.
His method takes cellulose from bamboo and subjects it to zinc chloride and a simple acid to break up the complex polysaccharide bonds that hold this plant fiber together. Next they add ethanol into the soup of smaller molecules, and from that derive a plastic for use in injection, molding, and machining manufacturing techniques.
One major drawback is the bamboo plastic’s inflexibility, which limits its incorporation into the full gamut of products that petroleum-based plastics can fulfil. On the other hand, however, these are often the plastics that remain in the ecosystem longest, and are the hardest to recycle. Therefore replacing them still represents a valuable contribution to reducing the overall plastic burden in the environment and waste streams.
Bioplastics derived from biomass show promise as sustainable alternatives to petrochemical plastics, but their adoption is hindered by their
Turn your windows into solar panels: an energy revolution is underway thanks to a scientific breakthrough from Oxford. How far could this in
Researchers at the University of Oxford have just reached a major milestone that could redefine our domestic energy sources. By integrating photovoltaic technology into our windows, they open the doors to a daily and widespread use of solar energy.
At the heart of this innovation is perovskite, a synthetic material known for its ability to efficiently capture light. Unlike traditional silicon solar panels, these perovskite cells are distinguished by their incredibly thin thickness, a feature that facilitates their application on various surfaces.
The researchers have developed a layer stacking process designed to capture a broader light spectrum. This allows for a certified energy efficiency of 27%, an impressive figure validated by the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) in Japan. Indeed, this performance rivals the best silicon panels available on the market.
Ethiopian startup making paper from waste banana, saving trees
Zafree's CEO and founder, Bethelhem Dejene Abebe, was honored with the Founder of the Year award at the Global Startup Awards Africa 2024 for the company's successes. Abebe's hope is to scale up its operations to meet the global demand for sustainable packaging needs.
Beyond Zafree's impactful product, the company has also created a new supply chain in Ethiopia. It has partnered with over 20 farmers, generating more income locally in Ethiopia.
Since its inception in 2018, Zafree has saved over 500 trees, prevented 100 tons of carbon pollution, distributed one ton of organic fertilizer to farmers, employed over 100 gig workers, and partnered with over 20 farmers.
Zafree's pulp is applicable for both local and international export use. On its website, it has multiple types of "Z-foam" pulp available in different densities, as well as kraft paper, liners, corrugated cartons, paper shopping bags, and even handmade notebooks.
HopfON was inspired by how banana fibres in Colombia are used to make sustainable building materials.
When hops are harvested every autumn in Germany's Hallertau region - the world’s largest hops-growing area about an hour north of Oktoberfest - for every one kilogram of material inside the cones that can be used to brew beer, there are 3.5 kilograms of wasted biomass from the rest of the plant. That's a ratio that's roughly 20 per cent usable product to 80 per cent waste.
Some of the hops waste can be used for fertilisers, and a portion can be sold to biogas plants to produce energy. But the majority is unusable for farmers, who may be forced to rent additional farmland to dump piles of the waste away from their crops. The piles can ferment and emit greenhouse gases - and sometimes catch fire.
“We saw a huge potential in sourcing locally and also using a waste stream that was neglected by basically most people," HopfON entrepreneur Mauricio Fleischer Acuña told The Associated Press.
Swiss scientists have created a living, edible, and biodegradable plastic alternative derived from mushrooms that could revolutionize sustai
Swiss researchers have created a groundbreaking biodegradable plastic-like material that is not only flexible and durable but also alive and edible. This innovation, detailed in a recent study published in Advanced Materials, represents a significant step toward sustainable materials that can address the growing plastic pollution crisis. The material, derived from the root-like mycelium fibers of the split-gill mushroom (Schizophyllum commune), balances toughness and biodegradability—a challenge that has long eluded materials scientists.
Living Fibers: Harnessing Fungal Biology for Material Innovation
The creation of this material began with the extraction of mycelium fibers from the split-gill mushroom, which were processed into a liquid mixture without destroying the fungal cells. This approach keeps the material alive, allowing it to retain its natural biological functions. The resulting gel-like substance, known as living fiber dispersions (LFD), can be molded into various shapes while maintaining flexibility and strength.
