October 5, 2016 at 3:54 pm









Craft brewery could influence big beer and soft drink companies to replace plastic six-pack rings with edible ones, potentially saving millions of sea creatures









A brewery started by surfers, fishermen and “people who love the sea” has developed edible ring-holders for their six-packs of beer.

The material – made of barley and wheat remnants from the brewing process – is 100-percent biodegradable and safe for fish, turtles, birds and other marine life to eat, unlike the plastic ring-holders that are now killing them by the millions.

Each year, “an estimated one million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals and sea turtles become entrapped in plastic or ingest it and die,” says marine biologist Mark Tokulka in the video below.

Americans consume more than 6 billion gallons of beer each year, half of which comes in cans. Most of the plastic rings that hold those cans together end up in the ocean. Saltwater Brewery wants to change that.

The hope is that other craft breweries and large beer companies will follow their lead. If they did, the manufacturing cost would drop and be very competitive with the cost of plastic six-pack rings, saving hundreds of thousands of marine lives.

In light of the recent projection that there will be more plastic than fish in the sea by 2050, it’s a step in the right direction!









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