These real-life Willy Wonka edible spoons could help solve our growing plastic problem

Edible spoons a la "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" are now a reality.ATelangana, India-basedcompany, calledBakey's, makes edible spoons, forks, and chopsticks. Its founderNarayana Pessapaty was fed up with the some 15,000 tons of plastic wastethat enters India'slandfills every day, so he decided to something about it.After selling more than 1.5 million pieces of cutlery since Bakey's startedin 2010, he is now launching a Kickstarter to grow his operation.Currently, Bakey's only sells spoons, but plans to distribute its forks and chopsticks with the Kickstarter funds. By summer, it will open a new facility that can produce 800,000 pieces of its cutlery a day.The spoons come in a variety of flavors, includingsugar, ginger-cinnamon, cumin, mint-ginger and carrot-beetroot.Made from rice, millet, and wheat, they all have a shelf life of two to three years.Pessapaty, an agriculture researcher from Hyderabad, India, hopes that his edible cutlery will cut down onwaste.The world consumes about 110 million tons of plastic a year, most of which ends up in a landfill, according to the United Nations Environmental Program.Mostplastic utensils are neitherrecyclable nor biodegradable. This means that after you use a plastic fork for 10 minutes, it eventually travels to a landfill where it sits forup to 1,000 years.If it doesn't end up in a landfill, it ends up in an oceanIndia ranks as #12 in the top countries that dump plastic into oceans, according toa 2015 study.Bakey's wants to make a dent in that waste. The company currently only ships within India, but plans to distribute internationally soon.The spoons, which come in packages of 100, cost about $4.15. Heaims to sell them mostly to takeout restaurants and food trucks,which largelyuse plastic utensils.Another Kickstarter, the Edible Spoon Maker, makes spoons out of any dough at home, but it only createsa few at a time. There's also Foodie Spoon, but its edible utensils cost $55 for a set of 100.Althoughthe Bakey's Kickstarteris over 600% funded (it has raised more than $120,000),Pessapaty realizes his team will need to lower the spoons' price even more to compete with plastic cutlery. He hopes to cut the price in half."I realized my main competition was plastic spoons because they were cheap," he says. "If demand increases, prices will come down further."Join the conversation about this storyNOW WATCH: 'Batman v Superman' is a complete trainwreck, and director Zack Snyder is to blame
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