CNN  — 

They may seem appetizing at first, but you wouldn’t want to take a bite: these popsicles are made of polluted water. They are the creation of three design students from the National Taiwan University of the Arts, Hong Yi-chen, Guo Yi-hui, and Zheng Yu-di.

“The water comes from 100 different polluted water sources in Taiwan, ranging from rivers to ports to ditches,” Hong Yi-chen told CNN.

Along with suspiciously colorful waters (due mostly to industrial dye), the popsicles contain bugs, dirt, dead fish, cigarette butts, nets, oil and plastic waste in various forms, such as wrappers, bottle caps and miscellaneous packaging.

Born as a graduation project, “100% Polluted Water Popsicles” has captured the attention of the media and has been featured in several exhibitions in Taipei, including the Taipei World Trade Center’s Young Designers Exhibition 2017.

“We had this idea because we believe clean water resources for everyone is a very important thing,” said Hong.

Around 90 percent of the solid waste in the popsicles is plastic. Each year, around 8 million metric tons of plastic waste are dumped into oceans and waterways – the equivalent of a truckload every minute, according to the World Economic Forum.

The treats are intentionally made to look appealing, and designed to convey the importance of pollution-free water through a sense of shock.

For the exhibitions, the students recreated the original ice popsicles using resin: “The resin was only used for displaying them, because otherwise the popsicles would just melt when mounted on the wall. So we found a material that preserved the same look as the ice,” explained Hong.

They also designed custom packaging for each one, complete with the water source name and a list of, well, presumed ingredients.

The project has also been nominated for the 2017 Young Pin Design award.