The “Feel The Peel” Juice Bar Puts Circular Waste Right In Front of You

People are more aware of the waste their decisions produce today than they’ve ever been before. It’s one reason so many companies showcase how they reduce their waste as part of the manufacturing process or reuse it to make sure their customers can purchase with a clean conscience. However, when it comes to a genuinely circular manufacturing process, Feel The Peel puts it all on display right in front of customers who place an order.

How Does It Work?

According to Inhabitat, Feel The Peel is a unique, technological juice bar that makes everything it needs out of the oranges held in its circular racks. The oranges are pulled in by the device, chopped in half, and juiced. The juice goes into a tank, while the peels go into a reservoir at the bottom. That material is then mixed with polylactic acid, dried, and milled. The peels are then heated and melted into a bioplastic filament, which is used by the juice bar’s built-in 3D printer. The filament is then used to print cups on-demand, turning the parts of the orange that aren’t used into a recyclable plastic cup.

Where Can I Try This Out?

The Feel The Peel juice bar was a prototype that made its debut in Rimini, Italy, in the summer of 2019. While there is talk of future installments, it’s still a proof of concept, rather than the final product. Discussions about improvements that could be made to future versions of the juice bar include printing fabric from the orange peels. The peels could then be used in making everything from clothing, to reusable shopping bags.

More to the point, though, Feel The Peel shows what’s really possible with food waste. It makes us ask questions like, “How much plastic could we stop using right now if we replaced it with orange peels and other products?” Getting an answer to those questions could drastically reshape not just the way we drink juice, but the way we use plastics in our day-to-day lives.