Yesterday, I featured Green Box, a pizza delivery box made from recycled cardboard that can be configured into tableware and a storage container for leftovers. Brilliant.

Today, here’s a concept (the keyword being concept … don’t run out to Target quite yet) that makes for a nifty eco-alternative to disposable paper plates at backyard BBQs and garden parties: Andrea Ruggiero Design's UFO (Unidentified Feeding Object), a completely biodegradable plate made from birdseed that is meant to be launched like a Frisbee after being used.

Yep, you read that right. Nontoxic, vegan UFO plates are constructed from a birdseed blend, potato starch, guar gum, and a seaweed-esque binding agent. After you eat off one once (they’re resistant to wet foods n’ sauces), throw it like a disc against a tree, into the bushes, at that awful wood chainsaw sculpture of a bear that you inherited when you bought your house … the goal is to shatter it, Greek wedding style, so that birds, squirrels, and other critters can feed off of it.

Super cool, zero-waste idea but I still do worry that tossing chunks of birdseed possibly covered in BBQ sauce or something of the sort could attract non-avian vermin no matter how resistant to wet foods the UFO plates may be. And all is fun and games until you have a giant colony of rats with a taste for ranch dressing infused birdseed living in your backyard.

Designed by Ruggiero for the InDisposed exhibition. 

Via [Design Boom]

Images: Andrew Ruggiero Design
