Originally published in SIX magazine issue 5– ADVENTURE
SIX Loves…
Pela Case
Written by Kate Stanbury
Pela is a revolutionary smartphone cover that you can plant after you’re done.
From sunscreen and sunglasses to insect repellent and mosquito nets – when we take a break from work and jet off on a holiday, our suitcases are usually packed full of products that protect us from harm. But this level of care doesn’t always extend to the dependable devices that help us through our working lives.
Thanks to Pela there’s an environmentally-friendly way to protect our smartphones. Made with plant matter rather than oil, Pela cases have the ecological upper hand over their competitors. Created from plants and flax straw fibres, the cases’ botanical origins mean they contain no bio-accumulative toxic chemicals and reduce our dependency on non-renewable resources. The natural flax fibres provide the strength and durability needed to protect our beloved best friends whilst providing farmers with a market for what’s usually a waste product.
Though we rarely part with them for longer than a few minutes, our smartphones don’t generally stay with us in the long run. Once our contract is up, we exchange our trusty helper for a newer, better model, which means saying goodbye not only to our old phone, but to the case that fitted it too. Unlike most discarded cases, which spend the rest of their days lying in landfill, Pela cases are compostable, reducing the amount of waste that would usually come with upgrading our phones. Pela’s aim is to replace conventional plastic with an environmentally-friendly alternative, one product at a time, with proceeds from the sale of Pela cases going towards research into the development of other useful sustainable products.