From Trash to Tree

Story by Gareth Kelly
Photos courtesy of Alex Henige

As a San Diego native studying landscape architecture at Cal Poly, Alex Henige has spent many hours on the freeway traveling between the two places. Like many of us he noticed all the trash that is strewn along vehicle arteries crossing towns and cities. One day an idea popped into his head.
“I was driving back home to San Diego, looking at all the trash when it hit me,” Henige said. “What if the trash could actually seed the land? What if the all this packaging contained seeds and could bio degrade and instead of trash, flowers popped up.”
Upon returning to Cal Poly, Henige talked to a professor about taking a class in packaging.
“The professor was really excited that someone from the landscape architect world was interested in packaging,” said Henige. “I took the class and learned all about packaging, how things are manufactured and how long things take to break down. It was really interesting. I decided to use my idea for my senior project.”
Trash to tree 1 He found a company in San Diego that could supply the paper he needed to make environmentally friendly cups. A paper that confirms to ASTM D6400 that breaks down within 180 days. He also found about 20 different California native species of seeds to put in the paper. Throw in a little beeswax to coat the inside, and his first prototype was made.
“I started doing more research, looking at making reforestation areas and looking at what species of plants needed bringing back,” said Henige. “I realized in order to get real manufacturing, I needed to gauge real interest from the public so I started a kick-starter campaign. My goal was $10,000, but the response was huge, I got $21,000. I can now use this money to get access to manufacturers and also do a little marketing. The response to the product has been amazing. I’ve been featured in Forbes.com, CNET the Today Show and even got over 350,000 views on a blogging site called boredpanda.com, oh and now I’m in SLO City News!”
Not content with simply throwing trash away this young, bright-eyed surfer dude is hoping to change the way all communities use and reuse their waste. Henige hopes to have the final coffee cup product complete by the end of this September and is hoping to be in the SLO Hot House accelerator program. He also has other ideas he isn’t yet ready to share. Armed with youth, conviction in his beliefs and with a noble ideology, this young man hopes to change the world one coffee cup at a time. To find out more about this impressive millennial and his cup see: www.planttrash.com