Remember all those classic PSA posters showing fish, birds and other wildlife caught in the deadly clutches of bags, bottles and the deadly plastic rings that hold your beer and soda cans together? Research by Greenpeace found that 80 percent of sea turtles and 70 percent of seabirds are still ingesting plastic today.
Very little about beer packaging is environmentally friendly, but many brewers find six-packs to be a more efficient way of storing their product, despite the continuing danger to sea life.
New York agency We Believers and its client Saltwater Brewery came up with a solution—edible six-pack rings made of grains left over from the brewing process itself.
"Together with Saltwater Brewery, a small craft beer brand in Florida whose primary target are surfers, fishermen and people who love the sea, we decided to tackle the issue head on and make a statement for the whole beer industry to follow," says agency co-founder and chief strategist Marco Vega.
Adds chief creative officer Gustavo Lauria: "For brands to be successful today, it is no longer about being the best in the world—but rather, being the best for the world and taking a real stance."
This is true, although the video is quite honest about the feasibility of scaling such a project. SaltWater had to either raise prices or lose money on the revamped product.
As the campaign indicates, a shift toward more sustainable packaging could take hold if the major beer brands began putting it into practice. One hopes they might be inspired by efforts like this, though we aren't terribly optimistic, given recent trends in mergers and declining profits for the world's sudsiest conglomerates.
Luckily, the beer itself tastes just as good with edible rings.
