Check out the trash collection area of any restaurant. The containers overflow with the remnants of packaging that once contained the food now found on the eatery’s tables and its customers' stomachs. More than 75 million tons of packaging waste found its way to landfills in the U.S. alone in 2010, Slate reports. A waste, but what's a person to do?

Help is on the way. Researchers are moving quickly toward creating edible packaging that consumers won’t have to throw away. A fast-food chain in Brazil, called Bob’s after founder (and tennis champ) Robert Falkenburg, wrapped its burgers in edible wrappers and encouraged its customers to just not bother unwrapping before eating during a one-day promotion earlier this month, AFP reports.

Bob’s — the country’s first fast-food chain, established in 1952 — was so successful at testing its edible packaging, at right, that not a single customer threw away the wrappings, according to PSFK. The Guardian, meanwhile, notes “two US companies (that) are currently vying to be the first to commercially exploit” this marketplace.Continue reading...

Walk into many grocer stores (or food co-ops) these days and you'll find bulk items — nuts, granola, beans and the like — that you can package and weigh yourself. Now imagine an entire grocery store like that.

This is the concept of in.gredients, the first package-free, "zero-waste" grocery store brand in the US. Scheduled to open in Austin, Texas later this year, the retailer will offer local, organic food products with a twist — customers need to bring their own reusable containers to carry the items home.Continue reading...