feel free to contact me
cinziaisabelferrari@gmail.com
I have been selected as finalist for the Most Innovative Approach at the Beyond Plastic Awards 2020, a global prize that encourages innovation to reduce the use of plastic products, especially in single-use plastic packages.
My project, PLANT plASTIC!, Is a packaging material that doesn’t contain any toxic ingredient and that doesn’t become waste: instead, at the end of its use it takes a new life form by growing into a house plant. Packaging is not a passive dead matter anymore. It is alive and contributes to a better environment: by growing into a plant, CO2 is absorbed from the air and single-use packaging consumption is reduced as the user will grow fresh products as tomatoes that are normally sold wrapped in plastic.
The material is made of sodium alginate, plant seeds, and Azospirillum Brasilense, which is a soil bacteria harmless to us humans, and because of its nitrogen-fixing property promotes plant growth. For this reason, this bacteria is well-known as biofertilizer. The packaging made of this material is dry and organically inactive but alive. It will become active again only when it is planted into soil. For this reason, Azospirillum Brasilense won’t contaminate any packaged product.
This project has been inspired by group work and experiments done during the MA Biodesign at Central Saint Martins, in collaboration with Emily Roscoe, Meiqi Peng, Moisés Hernandez, and Paula Camiña
