A material once seen as a breakthrough innovation that could benefit the environment by replacing animal products now litters the Earth to the tune of approximately 6.3 billion metric tons, most of it in the world’s oceans. Forty percent of that plastic is single-use packaging.

While recycling might seem like the most obvious way to deal with the problem, the fact is, less than a fifth of all plastic is recycled globally – and even once it’s recycled, plastic typically just degrades into smaller pieces that are harder than ever to clean up. The smallest particles discovered in new research measure about the width of a human hair, small enough to penetrate membranes in the gut and bloodstream. We still don’t know what effects these contaminants have on our health, but it’s clear that they’re harming and killing marine life and other animals that accidentally consume them.

In a world accustomed to convenience and disposability, scaling back the use of plastics seems virtually impossible. That’s why the key to finding a way out of this mess might lie with products that function a lot like plastic, but behave entirely differently when their life cycle meets an end, whether they’re used for beverages or buildings.

Edible Options

Single-use plastics are manufactured for a fleeting purpose, maybe an hour or two protecting your beverage from spills or a few moments of swabbing cotton over your skin. A lot of these items are used for hygienic reasons – like a pair of disposable gloves or the packaging that keeps certain items clean as they’re shipped and displayed on store shelves. Most of them can’t be recycled at existing facilities. But what if they were able to serve the purpose they’re made for, and then practically disappear before our eyes? A host of promising new plastic alternatives made of organic materials are able to do just that.

Plentiful and sometimes even edible, seaweed might just become the packaging of choice for food and beverage uses, cosmetics and other applications. It’s cheap, easy to harvest and doesn’t require fresh water or fertilizer to grow, and can biodegrade in soil in less than six weeks. Seaweed beds are also natural carbon sinks, de-acidifying water. Different varieties of seaweed have different properties that make them ideal for one purpose or another, like flexible red seaweed for disposable plates and cups or agar for clear, jelly-like edible pouches.

Biocompatible Materials for Medical Applications

Some bioplastics might even have a future in hospitals for tissue engineering or suturing wounds. A material called “Shrilk” comes from the wings and outer skeletons of arthropods like crustaceans, spiders, beetles and caterpillars, which are made up of protein and a polysaccharide polymer called chitin arranged in a plywood-like structure. It’s translucent, resilient, pliable and strong. Shrilk could be used to create everything from garbage bags, diapers and packaging to scaffolds for tissue regeneration or growing organs for transplants in laboratories.

Other forms of bioplastics made from chitin can be mixed with cellulose from wood or cotton to create environmentally friendly barrier coatings for food, water-resistant paper, ceiling tiles and wallboards. No living creatures have to be harmed to produce them, either, since insects naturally shed their exoskeletons and humans produce mountains of discarded lobster, crab and shrimp shells after consuming them.

The University of Bath found that biodegradable plastics can be made using sugar and carbon dioxide, too, and it’s cheap and easy to produce using low pressures and room temperature process. The resulting material is strong, transparent and scratch-resistant and can be biodegraded back into carbon dioxide and sugar using enzymes from soil bacteria. Like plastics made from chitin, this bioplastic is bio-compatible and can safely be used for tissue engineering.

Made of tiny plant fibers, nanocellulose is also technically edible – though it probably doesn’t taste all that great. Sourced either from forestry or agricultural waste products, it’s stronger than steel per weight and stronger than the Kevlar that’s used in bulletproof vests since the fibers stick together into small, solid structures. When it’s broken down into nanocrystals with the help of strong acids, it can be made transparent and applied to surfaces to smooth and strengthen them, creating a better oxygen barrier than plastic. It’s especially well-suited to flexible electronic components, bone regeneration and wound healing.

Organic Materials in Plant-Based Binders

One of the biggest concerns about replacing plastic is the fact that it’s currently so cheap to produce. Can any other material quickly step in and take its place using the same manufacturing equipment? It turns out, the answer to that question is yes. Sulapac is a material made from FSC-certified wood and natural binders, and it has plastic-like properties while being totally biodegradable and leaving no micro plastics behind. Sulapac products are water-, oil- and oxygen-resistant and can be produced on most existing production lines, so companies can instantly switch from their current plastic materials to a sustainable alternative.

Even cow’s milk can be made into a sort of plastic. Casein plastic, made of milk proteins, is so easy to make you can do it at home as a kid-friendly science project. In fact, milk was commonly used to make various plastic objects like buttons, beads and combs in the early 1900s. It readily takes surface dye, so it’s easy to mix into a wide variety of colors including pearlized and faux-tortoiseshell effects. After the advent of newer plastics, its use declined, but casein plastic could make a comeback. The vessels above were designed by Royal College of Art graduate Tessa Silva-Dawson for a project called “Protein.”

Molded Mycelium

Since pretty much nothing would ever biodegrade without the help of bacteria and fungi, it’s fitting to use the linked cells of mycelium as a replacement for materials that can’t be broken down naturally. Mycelium is the underground portion of fungi we see growing out of the soil, and it can be used to produce a surprisingly strong substrate that can be grown into molds of virtually any size and shape. The secret is in its tiny chains of tubular cells, binding together with natural materials like leaves and mulch to create dense mats.

A company called Evocative Design uses several species of fungi along with farming byproducts like seed hulls from rice and cotton gin waste to create a sort of styrofoam alternative that’s actually more UV-stable than foam and just as water-resistant. They break down within 180 days, whether in a landfill or somebody’s backyard.

Another biodegradable material called Mycoform is made from a composite of Ganoderma lucidum mushrooms, wood chips, oat bran, gypsum and other organic components. Also grown in molds, these networks of mycelia become strong enough to support significant weights, so they can be used to make furniture, insulation and interlocking walls for architecture. Some designers are even experimenting with ways to use them as a primary building material.

Considering that 18 billion pounds of plastic waste flows into the oceans every year from coastal regions and microplastics are actively endangering the entire food chain, refining biodegradable alternatives like these and producing them on a mass scale can’t happen soon enough.

Top image: Ooho edible water pouches made from agar

Modernism sought to bring a healthy uniformity to architectural design, in part through with clean lines and material minimalism. New technologies like air conditioning also allowed for an unprecedented level of global standardization in terms of temperature-controlled spaces. Of course, this often meant disregarding local traditions that had been successful for centuries (or longer). Among the regional strategies that got lost along the way was a seemingly small but critical factor: the variable heights of rooms humans build and occupy.

As a vernacular design critic who goes by Wrath of Gnon explains, “Before the International Style (modernism) in architecture, our ancestors knew how to adapt the room heights according to the climate, achieving maximum effect (comfort) for the least effort (energy). Today we trust in the grid and so build 8-9 ft rooms from Bermuda to Reykjavik.”

Ideally, the, in warm climates you want higher ceilings because “as hot air rises the difference in temperature at floor level and ceiling level in a tall room can be as much as 4 degrees [celcius] all other things being equal. Here, a comfortable looking gentleman in an 1817 room in Rome,” height around 15 feet. In Brazil, 15-foot homes were typical historically.

Conversely, in colder climates, lower ceilings meant higher temperatures. “Here are log houses from Russia and Sweden. The efficiently constructed fireplace created an interior draught that sucked fresh air in and expelled smoke, dust. Fans or mechanical ventilation not needed.”

In Japan, “with hot summers and relatively cold winters, a different technique was called for. Wooden houses allowed for perfect fine tunings of openings depending on exact climate and orientation. This traditional room built to maximize airflow, livable in summers without AC.”

In short: choosing the right materials, heights and orientations for a climate makes a big difference. “By building with nature and climate instead or regardless of it, by adapting our waking hours to the rhythm of the sun we can achieve remarkable levels of comfort—even superior—compared to what we have today in our modern homes built to international, industrial standards.”

Color, shape, texture and structure form the basis for these cairns, mandalas, spiral and hexagons, set against scenic backdrops where the materials were found.

In a tradition often traced back to Andy Goldsworthy, artist James Brunt makes “creates elaborate ephemeral artworks using the natural materials he finds in forests, parks, and beaches near his home in Yorkshire, England,” reports Colossal.

By design and necessity, each of the works is inherently temporary, destined to follow and entropic path back to chaos once left to the forces of nature.

And while all of these works take time, the stacked stone cairns are particularly impressive — and probably the first to fall back apart when left alone.

But Brunt photographs each piece after completion, creating a record that will outlast the work, and sells prints as well.

Concrete might typically be cold, hard, impersonal and impermeable, but treat it right and it’ll soften right up into surprisingly comfortable, accessible and usable everyday items, from pens and iPhone skins to rocking chairs and squishy-looking seating. Cast it from pillowy molds, 3D-print it in squiggles, brush it onto highly detailed objects, impregnate it into textiles or imprint it with delicate textures and you’ll have objects full of intriguing contradictions.

Concrete 3D Printer Enables Innovation

This 3D printer by Dutch company ROHACO spits out concrete in all manner of shapes, even squiggly lines, through a swivel head attached to a hose from a concrete mixer. Not only does this enable concrete to take unprecedented forms, it makes it possible to 3D print entire homes unsupervised, with the kinds of curves and details that would normally take an extraordinary amount of work.

3D-Printed Concrete Canoe

3D printing with concrete makes it possible to produce things like the skelETHon 3D printed concrete canoe, which won first place at the 16th Concrete Canoe Regatta competition in Germany. That’s right, it’s not even the first canoe to be made from concrete! The inner frame of this one is made of concrete reinforced with stiff steel fibers, while the shell is a two- to three-millimeter-thick waterproof concrete skin.

Concrete & Canvas Seating

These objects are a bit of a contradiction: simultaneously appearing soft and hard. That’s because they’re both, technically. ‘Fabric’ is an outdoor seating collection by Miriam Estévez, wherein soft fabric poufs are soaked in a liquid concrete and allowed to dry in order to create a surprisingly strong, durable, waterproof result.

Traditional Chair Covered in Concrete

You might imagine that someone took a mold of a traditional chair and then cast it with solid concrete, producing the detailed form you see before you. The truth is actually much simpler. Bentu Design teamed up with Guangzhou fine arts students to carefully cover an existing chair with concrete mixture, making sure to preserve every detail, from the scallops along the wooden frame at the top to each individual upholstery nail.

Delicate Persian & Islamic Patterned Tables

Concrete doesn’t take on the adjective ‘delicate’ easily, but every now and then, something qualifies. This disc-shaped tabletop, just a few millimeters thick, balances on the neck of a water-filled jug to form a beautiful recycled coffee table. Milan-based design studio Daevas printed the top with a traditional Persian pattern.

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Concrete Like Youve Never Seen It 15 Unexpected Furniture Object Designs

Our cities have grown up thanks to concrete and steel, but these materials are far from sustainable, leading architects and researchers to explore new (and old) materials, from wood to eggshell and even bone.

Steel and concrete account for 10% of global carbon emissions, polluting close to as much as the entire transportation industry. Bioengineer Doctor Michelle Oyen of Cambridge’s Department of Engineering builds structures in her lab from artificial bone and eggshell. These can be used for medical implants, but could also scaled up to create low-carbon building materials.

Funded in part by the US Army Corps of Engineers, Oyen’s creations are composites of proteins and minerals, mainly from bone; the former provide toughness and fracture resistance and the latter lend stiffness and hardness to the mix. These currently come from natural (animal) sources, but she is investigating whether a “non-animal-derived or even synthetic protein or polymer could be used instead of natural collagen.”

In theory, her biomimetic creations could even become self-healing, in the same vein as concrete designed to repair itself. For the construction industry to adopt such radical new technologies at scale remains one of the biggest challenges for future organic and semi-organic materials – for decades, building codes have been framed around the use of concrete and steel.

Cities and skyscrapers of today already represent a good first step toward long-term sustainability, packing lots of people into dense areas and in vertical structures requiring less land. Still, a shift to renewable, organic and reusable materials would make them more future-proof and environmentally friendly.

Wood is another natural building material gaining increased attention from the built environment community, a renewable resource that is strong, durable, recyclable and more fire-resistant than most people realize.

At the same time, “future cities may not look a whole lot different – you may not know immediately if you are in a timber, steel or concrete building,” says Doctor Michael Ramage from the Cambridge Department of Architecture. Already, tall wooden towers are being built in Canada and Holland, while the world’s tallest wood skyscraper has been proposed for London.

And resulting “cities might be a whole lot quieter, as most timber buildings are built off site, and then just assembled on site, and use roughly a fifth as much truck traffic as equivalent concrete buildings. In other words, what needs to be delivered in five trucks for a concrete building can be delivered in one truck for a timber building. That’s an incredible advantage, for cost, for environment, for traffic and for cyclists” (Bone Church image by Davis Staedtler and Ossuary by jockrutherford).