Can you innovate a trivial thing such as the plastic plant pots you get when you buy the plants? Yes, if you want to reduce waste, then certainly you could. But what else could you possibly improve about a packaging product like that? The German startup POTTBURRI seeks to reduce waste and wants to offer plant packaging that biodegrades, improves soil fertility, and plant health in the process.
POTTBURRI wants to solve the plastic pot problem
The siblings and founders of POTTBURRI, Antonia Cox and Alexander Cox come from a family of people with green thumbs. Apparently, the idea of getting rid of plastic for plant packaging goes back to their grandfather experimenting with paper pots and the likes but seeing how the world has an increasing plastic waste problem, the priority to become part of the solution has increased as well.
POTTBURRI as a brand name is a mix of the German term “Pott” and the English term “bury” as well as a play on the term “potpourri.” This is also a straightforward way of describing the product they provide. Their plastic-free pots are made of the innovative source material “SUN CIRCLE” and consist primarily of sunflower seed shells. Those shells as well come from the manufacturing process of various foods, so the POTTBURRI pots take waste to build something that again prevents additional waste.
Consumers could buy these plastic-free biodegradable plant and flower pots from POTTBURRI for a price of 12.99 EUR as of now for a set of ten pots. However, the true potential of this solution is unlocked when large distributors and other companies in the gardening and flower industry change how they transport and sell their products to the end-user.
POTTBURRI has great potential
The design of the product also supports the people in how they can bury their plants. They don’t need to first get the plant out of a plastic pot and potentially stress or hurt the plant while putting them into their new home in people’s gardens or balconies. They can simply bury them all together with the POTTBURRI pot. The pot will dissolve over time, allowing roots to grow into the wider area and allowing worms and insects to do their job better as well.
Reducing waste is not only a buzzword for a startup’s product design. Reducing waste and utilizing material as well as we can for as long as we can is imperative to maintain the environment. Next to other German startups, like Landpack, who introduced straw for packaging material, especially large companies need to think about reducing waste and recycling material. Companies such as Accenture, Intel, Estée Lauder, Eaton, and Texas Instruments are leading the pack here.
YouTube: Der Topf zum Eingraben (German)
Photo credit: All images shown are owned by POTTBURRI and were provided as part of a press kit.
Source: Official website and press material / Hernando Cortina (Forbes)
