Orange juice may seem like the smart choice for a daily staple, but each glass is responsible for about 200 grams of carbon emissions from farm to table. Now, one design studio is tackling this environmental impact, ensuring you can have your juice and drink it. The team at the CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati developed Feel the Peel, a three-metre-high juicer and bar. “The production of juices in particular produces tonnes of waste,” Luca Giacolini says. One of the designers on the project, he helped create this installation that not only generates juice but simultaneously transforms the fruit peels into cups.
“Most people want to make better choices, they just don’t know where to start,” Giacolini says. At CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati, reinventing everyday activities is at the heart of the Italian-based practice. “We want to explore our technologies and positively change the way we live in cities,” Giacolini says. Feel the Peel was created for the global energy company Eni, and is a groundbreaking circular design that reuses materials in real-time. Filled with 1 500 oranges, the machine squeezes juice from the fruit while the peels are collected to be heated and melted. Once it becomes filament, a 3D printer compartment turns the peels into bioplastic cups that people can use to drink the freshly pressed juice from. The juice bar made an appearance at Italy’s annual Rimini Meeting and the Singularity University Summit in Milan. “It’s not enough to recycle in our own homes,” Giacolini says. “We need to bring this with intention to public spaces as well.”
Feel the Peel is regenerating resources that are already in our possession, proving the value of waste. “The thing you throw away today has the potential to become something else tomorrow,” Giacolini says. With something as simple as orange juice, he and his team are creating a world where recycling is no longer considered innovative, but normal.
Footage and photos by CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati, MYBOSSWAS, ActingOut, Nicola Giorgetti, and Beppe Giardino were used in the creation of this film.
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