Kitchen wraps made from banana leaves. Eyeglass frames forged from recycled plastic bottles. And a multi-purpose cleaner no bigger than a pill.
These ideas are the winners of a new competition from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) that’s designed to help counter some of the greatest environmental threats facing Latin America and the Caribbean.
The Innovation for Sustainable Lifestyles awards recognize young entrepreneurs whose concepts could help reduce pollution, combat climate change and prevent biodiversity loss.
This year’s contest included 76 teams from 12 Latin American countries. The winners were announced in September during the region’s Sustainable Consumption Week.
A small company from Bolivia that makes banana leaves to replace plastic kitchen films won first place. Second place went to a group of entrepreneurs crafting eyeglass frames from plastic bottles in Ecuador. And a team from Mexico that produces a biodegradable cleaner in pill form, negating the need for plastic containers, came in third place.
“What was once important, today is urgent. That is one of the lessons learned from the pandemic,” said Jacqueline Alvarez, UNEP Regional Director in Latin America and the Caribbean. “If we want lasting and long-term results, we must integrate environmental sustainability into all actions, and essentially into the COVID-19 recovery.”
The ceremony comes against the backdrop of what experts call a triple planetary crisis: rapidly intensifying climate change, unchecked pollution and the looming extinction of 1 million species.
If we want lasting and long-term results, we must integrate environmental sustainability into all actions, and essentially into the COVID-19 recovery.
From plantation to kitchen
UNEP’s research shows that In Latin America and the Caribbean, waste generation is expected to increase at least 25 per cent by 2050.
Concerns about the mounting toll of rubbish led Bolivia’s Banana Pack to design a banana leaf foil to protect food and to cook meals in – as many indigenous communities did in generations past.
Founders Alicia Valda and Kiara Miranda thought that their product could easily replace cling film, without demanding a complex behavioral change in customers.
“Banana Pack is supplied with raw material from the residue of banana cultivation. Something that used to be considered waste, today is a source of extra income for producers,” Valda says.
The team now works with ten family farms that produce chemical-free crops, and the leaves are offered to clients in different sizes, fit for different purposes.
“Banana Pack was inspired in a custom inherited for generations. We can adapt an ancestral knowledge to our "fast food" world to reduce the environmental impact of our decisions,” Valda reflects, after winning the first-place prize in the Innovation for Sustainable Lifestyles contest.
The gift of sight
The toxic tide of plastic choking the world’s oceans – along with an epidemic of vision problems in the developing world – inspired Ecuador’s Bottleyes, the contest’s runner up.
A four-person team of Bryan Román Aguilar, Pablo Herrera Freire, Bryan Aguilar Alvarado and Isaac Romero are giving plastic bottles a second life as glasses frames.
“We encountered children who had fallen behind in their studies because their parents could not afford the average bill of the ophthalmologist, or elderly people who felt obsolete because they didn’t own a pair of glasses,” says Isaac Romero, CEO of Bottleyes.
Every Bottleyes frame is produced with the plastic obtained from three recycled bottles and includes an original hinge that allows the replacement of parts, so the frames can be repaired multiple times.
“Eco-friendly products have been restricted for niches of high purchasing power. We must think about making these solutions accessible,” says Romero.
Bottleyes is part of what’s known as the circular economy, which prizes products that can be re-used over time instead of simply being thrown away. Only 8.6 per cent of the world’s economy is circular. Increasing that percentage, say experts, could help dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions and curtail pollution.
A cleaner in pill form
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, three university students from Celaya, in the center of Mexico, worried about the increased use of disposable products and disinfectants sold in plastic bottles.
The team came out with an effervescent pill that, when diluted in water, turns into a biodegradable multipurpose cleaner.
“With each pouch of One Step Cleaner pills, customers avoid the purchase of four traditional bottles of disinfectant”, explains Elizabeth Romero, student of Digital Design.
The pills include only food-grade reagents, like citric acid, and their inventors believe the compounds are even nurturing for plants. The product comes in a biodegradable jute sack and includes a seed to encourage tree planting.
Romero and partners Maricruz Avila and Alejandra López Viana, all students, hope to prevent 500kg of plastic waste in their first year of production.
“We strongly believe that social and circular entrepreneurship can save the world,” says Romero. “New businesses should not only generate money. New businesses must change the world,” she added.
The three teams recognized at the Innovation for Sustainable Lifestyles contest will receive funds to scale up their plans. The Entrepreneurship Center of the University of the Andes, in Colombia, will offer direct support to grow these initiatives and help them to make a difference in their local markets.
The Innovation for Sustainable Lifestyles contest is organized with the support of the Driving Sustainable Consumption in Latin America with Better Product Information and Design project. That initiative is funded by the European Union and the Global Opportunities for Sustainable Development Goals initiative, itself funded by the Federal Ministry of Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety of Germany.
