Have you ever asked yourself, why hasn’t anyone thought of this? While in Bali in 2015, I asked myself this exact question upon stumbling across coconut shell handicrafts at a local market. Local craftspeople were carving and painting coconut shells, and selling them to tourists as souvenirs. Through research, I discovered that billions of these shells were going to waste every year. As a byproduct of the thriving coconut industry, coconut shells have traditionally been burned or discarded as landfill. I thought it was interesting that these shells – shaped almost perfectly to be used as a bowl – were considered waste. |