Hana, Colleen, Laura, Prerna, Giovanna Lunch Box

Introduction While the pop culture-centric vessels of our childhood were descendants of the simple and practical steel tomes that surfaced in the 1800s, the lunch box provides an interesting anecdote to our eating habits, past and present. The lunchbox’s “part luggage, part appetite stimulant” mystique resonates across the globe, with various cultural alternatives defining how everyone takes lunch. In Waste Case’s philosophy, design and efficiency (in addition to sustainability) rule. So join us in our campaign to take the lunch box from collector keep to eco-chic, providing a convenient, effective, “green” item for use in the cafeteria.

Our Goal Our Goal is to great a well functional lunch box as well as a green friendly one. Most companies have environmental concerns like ours and we have heard many questions regarding many products. We have found that our product is a simple, easy and effective solution for your biodegradable plastic needs.

How Plastic is made

Biodegradable plastic Biodegradable plastics are plastics that will decompose in the natural environment. The advantage of biodegradable plastics is that, in the proper conditions (sun, moisture, oxygen, etc), the plastics degrade to the point where organisms can digest them. This reduces problems with litter and reduces harmful effects on wildlife. The term biodegradable means that a substance is able to be broken down into simpler substances by the activities of living organisms, and therefore is unlikely to persist in the environment.

Making it… Plastics can be produced from starch. Starch is harvested from corn, wheat or potatoes, then microorganisms transform it into lactic acid, a monomer. Plastics can also be produced by bacteria. Bacteria are simply grown in culture, and the plastic is then harvested. Going one step further, scientists have taken genes from this kind of bacteria and stitched them into corn plants, which then manufacture the plastic in their own cells.

Cost… This sort of process and material is significantly more expensive to produce and, as yet, it is not having any success in replacing the widespread use of traditional plastics. Indeed, biodegradable plastic products currently on the market are from 2 to 10 times more expensive than traditional plastics. Though, the cheaper price of traditional plastics does not reflect their true cost when their full impact is considered. For example, when we buy a plastic bag we don’t pay for its collection and waste disposal after we use it. If we added up these sorts of associated costs, traditional plastics would cost more and biodegradable plastics might be more competitive

Our Inspiration

Our Sketch Model