Avocado Utensil: Avocado Pits, Eco-Friendly Plastic Alternative

We’ve talked about some of the incredible things you can make out of avocados: delicious food, of course, hand salves, foot scrubs, beer, and plastic straws, to name a few. Now we can add utensils to that list! One start-up company is using avocado pits to create compostable single-use utensils.

person holding white plastic disposable fork and spoon

How Is Biofase Turning Pits Into An Avocado Utensil?

Scott Munguia founded Biofase, a biotechnology company, in Mexico in 2014. He realized that avocado pits contain a biopolymer, a plastic-like material that, unlike plastic, degrades over time. This material is perfect for replacing single-use items like plastic forks, knives, and spoons. Biofase turns avocado pits into sheets of heat-safe bioplastic resin that they can then cut into utensils. We use these utensils, throw them away, and unlike plastic utensils, they degrade in a landfill.

Killing 2 Birds With One Pit

In addition to preventing throwing away millions of plasticware each year, these avocado utensils have another environmentally-friendly impact: using avocado pits. Most people love avocados, but very few people compost the superfruits’ skins and pits when they’re done with them. So what happens to the avocado pits? We throw them away. You might be thinking, “that’s ok, food waste can decompose!” Unfortunately, most landfills do not have the proper environment for food scraps to disintegrate, so they sit there for a very, very long time.

Utensils made out of avocado pits, however, break down in as little as 240 days. That means that Biofase recycles around 130 tons of avocado seeds into forks, knives, straws, and spoons each month. That’s 130 tons of avocado pits that don’t end up in landfills. Compared to the 200 years plastic utensils take to decompose, Biofase products decompose in less than 1.

Avocado, Vegetable, Cut, Half, Pit

What Are They Made Out Of?

Biofase’s utensils aren’t 100% avocado pit. The utensils are 60% avocado biopolymer and 40% synthetic compounds. If you have your own compost pile, add your avocado utensils to it for the most eco-friendly disposal option there is! Biofase has been supplying restaurants with their utensils, but they’re available wholesale on Amazon, too.