Every year more than 100,000 kilos of plastic bands end up in landfills in the Netherlands. PlantJeBandje is changing this with festival straps that incorporate hemp and flower seeds. After a successful test at Paradigm Festival, they introduced a more sustainable clip, which was tested by staff at ESNS. Feedback was mostly positive.  

“We collected a lot of feedback, the developers of the clip are going to work with it right away,” said Bert Venema of PlantJeBandje. “A grant writer has even come forward, who may be able to help us with further development.” Bert and his team are going to make some improvements as a result of the test results: “Together with our flower seed supplier we will look into the possibility of creating more water-resistant paper for the seeds. It shouldn’t contain plastic, of course.” He continues: “Our bands with flower seed mix for bees and butterflies are already a step forward in sustainability and biodiversity, but we always want to keep innovating.” He also came up with the idea of printing a QR code on the band, which provides info about the festival. “We tried it right away, and it works! Because of the structure of the festival’s polyester bands, this was not possible, but with our durable material, people can now easily receive information through the QR code. Isn’t that great? Finally, something else unexpected occurred during the test. Bert: “The cold was found to have an impact on the enzymes in the material. This is an important fact to take into account in the further development of the clip. We learned a lot about how the material behaves in practice.”