Indonesia consumes 14.5 billion instant noodles every year, and with each serving comes plastic: tiny seasoning sachets and, in cup noodles, disposable forks. Together, they create an enormous waste problem—about 73,000 tonnes of plastic annually just from sachets, plus several thousand more tonnes from forks that are used once and thrown away. Most of this plastic is non-recyclable, meaning it ends up polluting landfills, rivers, and oceans.
My idea is to transform this system into eco-friendly noodles. Instead of separate plastic sachets, the seasonings are embedded into a bioplastic sheet shaped like a circle that fits perfectly on top of the noodle block. When cooking, the sheet naturally dissolves, releasing the flavors without the need to tear open any packets. For utensils, I replace the single-use plastic fork with eco-friendly chopsticks made from bamboo or another biodegradable material, which are more sustainable and culturally authentic.
This innovation keeps the convenience and taste of instant noodles but removes the hidden cost of plastic waste. By adopting this design, we could eliminate tens of thousands of tonnes of plastic every year, making instant noodles not just fast and delicious, but also far more sustainable.