Material Innovation: Packaging Design is a new book that charts new breakthroughs in package design. This egg packaging from Gogol Mogol does double duty, by creating a safe shipping container for an egg and, thanks to a built-in chemical reaction, cooking the egg once combined with water.

To shave off excess weight, Virgin Atlantic airlines hired London-based design studio MAP to reimagine their cutlery trays into slimmer, lighter packages.

This conceptual version of Tide laundry detergent imagines it as a rolled-up strip of tearable pods. Each pod dissolves in the wash and is printed with water-soluble ink.

People went ballistic a few years ago when a MIT research group released a video featuring Liquiglide, its proprietary non-stick coating that could free up untold amounts of clogged ketchup. This advancement is a step forward in packaging as well, thanks to its waste-reducing powers.

The Drinkable Book comes printed with information and statistics on potable drinking water. In that way, it's a health PSA.

The pages are also coated with silver nanoparticles that, when used to filter water, can trap a reported 99.99 percent of the bacteria found in cholera, E. coli, and typhoid.

Plenty of goods require excess materials to ship safely. Typically, companies use styrofoam or plastic. Evocative Design's mycelium (cultivated from mushrooms) is fully compostable.

Some packaging redesigns might not reduce waste as much as they pack in more functionality. Ynvisible, a developer of electrochromic displays, created this conceptual ad, that looks like a boarding ticket, which responds to a touch of a button to show flight promotions in real time.

Scotts Miracle-Gro Company tapped Group 4 research and design consultancy for these Gro-ables Seed Pods.

The seeds come in biodegradable containers made from natural cellulose pulped fiber, and contain fertilizer. Pop them in the dirt as-is, and they grow.