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Bottle Farm: Grow Fresh Food On Your Window

Students Charlie Francis, Daniel Taylor and Emil Schneider co-founded Bottle Farm after graduating university. The Bottle Farm kit that they have set up is very appealing to us students who come back to shrivelled up plants after the Christmas holidays, year after year.

In the UK alone, 15 million plastic bottles are thrown away every day

Bottle Farm is a self-watering system that uses hydroponic technology, which means the plants grow in water, rather than soil. Natural sunlight gives the plants energy to grow, so the kit doesn’t require a plug socket and electricity like other systems. This is perfectly low maintenance.

Environment:

In the UK alone, 15 million plastic bottles are thrown away every day. Got an empty bottle hanging around the kitchen? Bottle Farm is launching a kit that transforms a plastic bottle into a beautiful indoor farm. Store-bought produce has a serious environmental impact, as it’s often transported by air and wrapped in single-use plastic. Growing fresh food in a Bottle Farm avoids these problems. The kit is made up of over 95% recycled materials.

The list of plants and vegetables that can be grown using this simple kit is endless

Health:

Food processing has a major effect on the vitamins and minerals that are in fresh fruit and vegetables. Due to respiration, nutrients begin to reduce in quality the moment a fruit or vegetable is picked. The longer produce has to respire before it is consumed, the less likely it is to withhold its nutrients. Therefore, even fresh food that has been transported long distances will not be as nutritious as locally or home-grown food. Bottle Farm changes this. Fruits and vegetables can be grown and picked from kitchen windowsills and included immediately in cooking meals. Chives, chilies, coriander, the list of plants and vegetables that can be grown using this simple kit is endless.

Education:

The kit aims to teach people the environmental benefits of using hydroponics and the project has plans to expand so that it is included in many school projects.

Co-founder Daniel Taylor says: “We can donate these kits to schools, and we think they would be perfect as primary school projects; especially for kids that don’t have space at home or whose parents aren’t really into growing plants. Every day the kids would be able to track the plants’ growth”.

Bottle Farm now has orders placed in 24 different countries and the project is currently crowdfunding on Kickstarter, where it has reached 100% of its funding target in just 24 hours. If you would like to get your hands on a Bottle Farm of your own, then click here (ends 23rd July).

You can also follow Bottle Farm on Instagram – @bottlfarmltd.

Jodie Clare

All images courtesy of Bottle Farm. No changes were made to these images.

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