A team at MIT’s Varanasi Research Group has created LiquiGlide – an FDA approved surface coating that liberates all of the ketchup, mayonnaise or other condiments from a glass or plastic bottle.
The research came in second in MIT’s $100K Entrepreneurship Challenge.
Traditionally, there’s still a bunch of food left in the bottle when you throw it out. By MIT’s calculations, about 1 million pounds of food gets thrown out each year worldwide. Also, those squeeze bottles need a big cap. By eliminating the need for such a big cap, we would save 25,000 tons of petroleum-based plastics each year.
The coating could be on the market within two to three years and beyond condiments, it could prove useful in containers for shampoos and lotions.