英国公司发明出可以吃的饮料容器

Runners in a half-marathon in London on March 1 might be a little confused at the water stations, where instead of getting water in a plastic cup or bottle, they'll be handed an edible water-filled pod.

3月1日在伦敦举行的半程马拉松比赛上，选手们来到水站后可能会有些困惑，因为水站给他们发的不是杯装或瓶装的水，而是装了水的可以食用的容器。

The package, which is also compostable, is made from seaweed and plant extracts. You simply bite the corner off and drink.

该包装是用海藻和植物提取物制成的，而且它也是可以降解的。你只需要咬掉包装的一角，就可以饮用了。

"What we want to do is have a bulletproof solution—regardless of where it ends up, our packaging will not create negative consequences," says Pierre-Yves Paslier, cofounder of Notpla, the startup that makes the packaging. "If nature can deal with it if it ends up in the wrong place, that's the ultimate kind of protection."

生产这种包装的是一家初创公司Notpla(替代包装专家)，该公司联合创始人皮埃尔-伊夫·帕索耶表示，“我们想要提供的是一种无懈可击的方案，也就是说，不论我们的包装最终到了哪里，它都不会带来负面影响。如果它最终被丢到了错误的场所，大自然也可以把它处理掉，这就是最终的保护措施。”

Paslier, a former packaging engineer at L'Oréal, began working on the concept along with designer Rodrigo Garcia Gonzalez in 2013 while they were studying innovation design engineering at Imperial College London and the Royal College of Art. Seven years later, it's no longer a student project but a viable business. After raising more than $1 million in a crowdfunding campaign last year, the company has just raised its first VC-backed "seed plus" round of more than $5 million.

帕索耶曾是欧莱雅的包装工程师。2013年他和设计师罗德里戈·加西亚·冈萨雷斯一起在伦敦帝国理工学院和皇家艺术学院学习创新设计工程，当时他们一起开始研究了这一设想。7年后，它不再是一个学生提出的项目，而成为一项可行的业务。去年该公司在众筹活动中筹得了100多万美元，而目前，该公司刚刚完成了由风投公司支持的首轮“种子+”融资，融资金额逾500万美元。

The designers used a technique from molecular gastronomy to create the package—if you dip a sphere of ice in a mixture of calcium chloride and brown algae extract, an edible membrane forms around the ice, holding everything in place as the ice melts back to room temperature.

设计师们使用分子美食学中的一种技术来制作这种包装——如果你把一个冰球浸入氯化钙和褐藻提取物中，在冰球的周围就会形成一种可食用的薄膜，当冰在室温下融化时，那层薄膜会把一切固定在原位。

A small version of the package is designed to break open inside your mouth. "It's a bit like a cherry tomato," says Paslier. "You put it in your cheek and bite on it. It explodes, so it's quite a surprising experience."

该公司还设计了一款小包装，可以直接放进嘴里咬开。帕索耶表示，“它有点像樱桃番茄。你把它放进嘴里，然后咬一口，它就会裂开，因此这可以说是很不同寻常的经历了。”

The startup partnered with the Scottish whisky brand Glenlivet last year to make a "glassless cocktail" capsule that customers can imbibe along with whisky. The seaweed coating, which is tasteless, can either be eaten or composted.

去年这家初创公司与苏格兰威士忌品牌格兰威特(Glenlivet)合作，推出了一款“非玻璃包装的鸡尾酒”胶囊，顾客在喝威士忌的时候，可以同时饮用这款鸡尾酒。这种海藻制成的包装是无味的，而且既可以食用，也可以制成堆肥。