Plastic cutlery started becoming very uncool when the onset of global warming started taking shape. Then came in the wooden cutlery as a eco-friendly alternative and lots of establishments caught on, more noticeably in Europe. But now a certain Indian start-up called Bakey’s is completely revolutionising the way we dispose of our cutlery. This particular cutlery we dispose of in our bodies, through the mouth, yes eating! It’s the age of edible cutlery.
120 billion pieces of plastic cutlery are thrown away annually in India
Bakey’s founder Narayana Peesapaty started development of his idea in 2008, and turned it into a fully fledged business in 2010. He was driven by the increasing usage of plastic cutlery contributing to the ever-filling landfills and the billions of people in India using plastic cultery on a daily basis. According to Huffington Post, India is the world’s largest user of disposable cutlery, meaning that 120 billion pieces of plastic cutlery are thrown away each year. This makes sense when we think of India’s huge street food culture, which makes use of simple dining utensils.
What’s it made of?
More than the waste and global warming, Peesapety wanted to go about his mission correctly, not disrupting any other industry while alleviating the plastic waste issue. And so on top of the fundamental green-ness of edible cutlery, the ingredients in Bakey’s were chosen in order to alleviate groundwater depletion, through farming of Sorghum, the main ingredient. By choosing sorghum, as opposed to rice, farming is redirected to dry land, away from the over-farming of rice, which requires a lot more water.
Bakey’s has no preservatives, is completely biodegradable and comes in different flavours including a sweet option. The cutlery also doesn’t take over the flavours of your actual food.
Going forward
Perhaps edible bowls will be the next venture for Bakey’s, but for now, we can only hope that this concept will catch on to the rest of the world. SA’s big food retailers are still very much in the plastic game.
You can purchase the cutlery online here.
Watch this video from The Better India:
Image taken from Bakey’s Facebook.