Soon, eat your bottles once you've drunk what's inside

People will soon be able to eat their bottles after they have finished their drink - thanks to an avant-garde edible material developed by scientists. The product, a membrane created using a biodegradable plastic combined with food particles, could either be peeled off or potentially eaten as a whole and can taste like the drink inside.

Until now, experts at Harvard University have filled an orange membrane with orange juice, a tomato-flavoured enclosure with gazpacho and grape packages with wine.

They have not yet created a bottle with WikiCells - the edible material- but biomedical engineer Dr David Edwards hopes to craft a prototype soon.

"In the near term, we will be encountering WikiCells in restaurant settings' as a novelty item," the Daily Mail quoted him as saying.

After that, Prof Edwards plans to expand WikiCells to speciality stores and supermarkets.

Eventually, he plans to develop a WikiCells machine that would allow individuals to produce their own edible bottles.

"The idea was to try to create a bottle which was based on how nature creates bottles," he told the Harvard Crimson.

"People in a village in Africa could become plastic bottle-free and make things for themselves. It's really exciting from a humanitarian point of view," he added