Florida brewery unveils six-pack rings that feed sea turtles rather than kill them

Authored by nola.com and submitted by sisyphushaditsoeasy
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You've probably seen the heart-wrenching photos of the damage plastic six-pack rings can do to marine life. They tangle the wings of sea birds, choke seals and warp the shells of growing sea turtles.

A Florida brewery has a solution: six-pack rings that that can either biodegrade or serve as a snack for wildlife. After years of research and development, the rings - made of wheat and barley - are now popping up in south Florida stores.

Saltwater Brewery, a craft microbrewery in Delray Beach, developed the rings with a startup called E6PR. Troubleshooting and manufacturing the rings was expensive. E6PR hopes other breweries - both small and large - will buy into the new rings and help bring costs down.

Plastic pollution is a big issue for the Gulf of Mexico. According to recent research by Louisiana State University, the Gulf has one of the world's highest concentrations of marine plastic. Each net or bottle dipped into the Gulf by LSU researchers came up laden with plastic.

"We found it every time," LSU's Mark Benfield told NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune in August.

Last year, a volunteer beach cleanup on three miles of Elmer's Island gathered more than 170 plastic six-pack rings, along with 4,000 pounds of other trash.

According to Craftbeer.com, E6PR is testing the rings with "a select group of craft breweries" but the company wasn't ready to discuss specifics. Time will tell if any Louisiana breweries incorporate the rings.

Tristan Baurick covers Louisiana's coastal environment for NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune. Email: [email protected] * Twitter: @tristanbaurick * Facebook: Tristan Baurick and Louisiana Coastal Watch.

westicular on May 31st, 2018 at 13:36 UTC »

My mother-in-law brought back a six pack of their sea cow stout a couple of months ago that sported this stuff. I thought it was smooth eggshell packing material at first glance. When I read what it was, I was like "holy shit! that's awesome!" Side note: the beer was quite tasty!

Iorith on May 31st, 2018 at 13:32 UTC »

Every once in a while my state has good news instead of another appearance of Floridaman.

hrg0891 on May 31st, 2018 at 13:16 UTC »

Yay! I get to throw my trash back in the ocean again!