Saltwater Brewery Designs Edible Six Pack Ring To Save Marine Life
Around the world, almost every year around 6.3 billion gallons of beer is consumed. Most of the plastic rings used in cans of beer, end up in the ocean. Marine animals become entrapped in plastic and die.
A brewery in South Florida, namely Saltwater Brewery is taking an innovative approach to protecting wildlife with six pack rings that feed the animals. They have created, tested and prototyped the first ever “Edible Six Pack Ring”
The company says the rings are made with byproducts of the beer – wheat and barley.
Brewery co-founder Bo Eaton doesn’t actually suggest you gnaw into the material. But sea animals can safely eat it rather than get tangled in plastic rings that lands in the ocean and are slow to break down.
Eaton said he and the other founders are surfers and fishermen first, beer makers second. They’ve long cared about the environment, so they partnered with New York advertising company We Believers to create the new rings.
“It has been an extremely exciting process,” said Marco Vega, chief strategy officer and co-founder of We Believers, the advertising agency working together with SaltWater Brewery
The announcement comes shortly after a humpback whale off the Massachusetts coast was entangled in rope and fishing line so severely that its tissue had grown around them, making removal impossible without killing the animal.
“Full credit to them for thinking outside the square at what they can do to stop plastic use,” said Jennie Gilbert, co-founder of Cairns Turtle Rehabilitation Centre. However, she added that since wheat and barley are not typically components of marine animal diets, research should be conducted into the effects of their ingestion in the long term.
“Obviously it’s better than plastic, there’s no doubt about that,” she said “But does it cause a long-term effect if they ingest it, does it cause problems? We don’t know that.”
It took months of redesigns and tests before the brewery had its first batch to try out. They’re continuing to perfect the method of creating and using the rings in large production before they’ll be on the market, Eaton said.
SaltWater has already seen an overwhelming response, especially from fellow brewers who stumbled upon a now-viral Facebook video showing off the product.
“We want to influence the big guys and kind of inspire them to also get on board,” said Chris Gove, President of Saltwater Brewery.
