It was bound to happen, right? A ban is mandated on various plastic items such as retail T-shirt bags, eating utensils, straws, cups, plates, and carry-out containers. But what if millions of retail bags, utensils, straws, cups, plates and carry-out containers are not available to meet consumer demand, especially in places like China and India? The answer is simple: Sell “fake” biodegradable retail bags, eating utensils, straws, cups, plates and carryout containers. An article in the New Indian Express by Shalnu Mohan, “Fake Biodegradable Carry Bags Flood Markets,” reports that counterfeit biodegradable bags are “flooding the market” in Thiruvananthapuram, India, “following the ban imposed by the state government on single-use plastic.”
The ban, which took effect in the state of Kerala on Jan. 1, 2020, also stipulated a fine of Rs 50,000 ($700) for violating the ban. Gee, what’s a store owner to do? Use fake biodegradable bags! So, on Jan. 27, “the state government issued yet another order clarifying [that] the products banned include branded and non-branded biodegradable carry bags,” said the article.
Hello,
First and foremost, we have a new and long awaited company name, Pura Vida Bioplastics. This company name fits 100% with what we are about and our vision of natural products that come from the Earth and return to the Earth having no ecotoxicity. PURA VIDA!! (aka PURA LIFE)
Our straw manufacturing line was, unfortunately, delayed by a few months as we had to adjust and assure that we are running verifiable certified home, soil and marine compostable material for our straws. There is so much greenwashing going on that we had lies and misdirection from our own advisor out of California that was promoting industrial compostable material to be tested on our machine and telling us it was home compostable. This relationship has been terminated! They are being held accountable for deceptive business practices and not aligning with Pura Vida’s integrity and moral commitment to the public and our planet. We recommend everyone to go BEYOND GREEN and assure you are receiving certifications that are verifiable and forthright.
We have grocery and t-shirt bags being manufactured by our third-party partners and the orders are growing so rapidly that we are looking further into more expansion to keep up. This is so amazing to see this coming to fruition. These new relationships will be revealed soon so we can show the recognition they so dearly deserve.
We will be posting more images and videos over this next month so you all can see the progress!
Again, thank you for your support, please like and share our social media and always remember, Let’s go beyond green and redefine plastic!
Kirt McGhee, CEO
https://ajf.da1.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/PVB-Straws.mp4?_=1
More than half of all the single-use plastic waste in the world is generated by just 20 companies, an analysis has found. And tops on the list of 20 is ExxonMobil, which is responsible for 5.9% of the total, the Guardian reports, followed by Dow at 5.6%. The analysis provides one of the most complete pictures so far of the origins of single-use plastics. The list includes chemical, oil, and gas companies, multinational corporations, and state-owned entities. The analysis was conducted by Minderoo Foundation of Australia, working with the London School of Economics, Stockholm Environment Institute, and Wood Mackenzie. The environmental damage could worsen quickly, the report says in projecting that the capacity to produce the materials in single-use plastics could increase more than 30% worldwide in the next five years. “The trajectories of the climate crisis and the plastic waste crisis are strikingly similar,” former Vice President Al Gore wrote in a statement attached to the report, per NPR.
Because most plastic is made from oil and gas, he wrote, more greenhouse gas emissions are produced, worsening the climate crisis. By 2050, the report said, single-use plastics could be responsible for up to 10% of greenhouse emissions globally. Of the 20 companies, 11 are based in Asia, four in Europe, three in North America, one in Latin America, and one in the Middle East, the report said. The banks that fund that production include Barclays, HSBC, Bank of America, Citigroup, and JPMorgan Chase. On the list of countries that went through the most single-use plastics per person in 2019, Australia was No. 1. The US, South Korea and Britain followed. Citing health and environmental dangers, the chairman of the Minderoo Foundation called for “firm intervention from producers, governments and the world of finance to break the cycle of inaction.” (Read more plastic stories.)
Source: Newser
Plastic in America will continue invading our landfills, floating in our oceans, and contaminating our bodies as long as we are stuck in the 20th-century linear economic mindset of “take-make-waste.” What the 21st-century needs is an intersectional approach to the plastics crisis. In March, the Break Free from Plastic Act of 2021 (BFFPA) was reintroduced to Congress, targeting the chemicals and plastics industries for their role in pollution and landfilling. The bill argues for increasing recycling rates, shifting financial responsibility for recycling and waste management systems to upstream producers, and bans an expanded list of petroleum-based, single-use plastic products. This is a good starting point, but these are linear solutions that still result in wasted resources and only incremental improvements to the economic models that are fueling the climate crisis. If we are to successfully address climate change, the BFFPA must push for circular economy principles that design out the concepts of waste and pollution entirely and advance regenerative natural systems instead.
The BFFPA proposes to improve recycling rates and impose waste management fees to reduce plastic pollution. These solutions have a number of inherent issues. Currently, a mere 9 percent of plastics are recycled each year. Improving this rate, even doubling or tripling it, won’t tackle an issue of the size we’re facing: over 35 million tons of plastic are produced each year in the U.S., and over 31 million tons are landfilled. The bill also suggests we bolster American recycling by shifting the cost of recycling and downstream waste management programs from taxpayers to polluters via packaging fees. (The American Chemistry Council (ACC) suggested pooling private and taxpayer funding instead.) However, if 91 percent of plastics are landfilled, changing the funding stream isn’t automatically going to ensure plastics actually end up in the recycling system.
Let’s be clear: plastic is toxic, and the chemicals that are used to produce petroleum-based plastics are toxic, too. Plastics break down into microplastics; washing fabrics or products with plastic sheds these microplastics into our landfills and oceans — we can’t recapture that in recycling systems. Recycling means recirculating inherently toxic materials, giving them another chance to infect our food webs and bodies with potentially poisonous results. Just as critics question carbon sequestration technology as a solution for emissions — when what we need to do is stop emitters from emitting — we must question the chemicals and plastics industries’ focus on recycling. Enforcing the belief that recycling is the only solution will drive plastics production and waste generation (thus increasing greenhouse gas emissions.) Plastic production from petroleum-based virgin resin production is a major contributor of C02, and improving downstream recycling doesn’t clean up carbon-intense upstream production. In addition to upstream emissions, recycling ignores local air and water pollution, directly impacting low-income communities of color, in whose backyards these toxic industries exist.
Continue Reading: Recycling is an outdated solution — it’s time for a circular economy | TheHill
Most of us have abandoned plastic straws but the next big culprit of our to-go coffees are the plastic lids! About 8.25 million tons of plastic waste enter the ocean each year and these take a million years to decompose causing significant damage to the oceans and marine life. Not-so-fun fact: New York City alone generates enough plastic lid waste to cover the entire earth THREE times. To solve this issue and keep coffee from spilling on your clothes, Unocup designed an ergonomic paper cup that folds into itself to create a spill-proof lid!
Just fold over each flap and insert the tab to close the “lid”. To open, it is a simple press of a button that will gently open the flap instead of trying to carefully pop off the lid – praying for you if you attempt that with long nails. This cup has a unique shape that fits into your palm, the uniform structure creates a strong and consistent body that will not cave under pressure, unlike traditional paper cups. The drinking curved spout is specifically designed to fit your lips naturally as opposed to the otherwise flat plastic lids. You can also fold flaps backward and drink from the rim just like a normal drinking glass. The first prototype was developed in 2015 and it has been refined 800 times since then to create the perfect final version that is as strong as your coffee. Unocup has been optimized for mass-production using existing cup-making machinery which will yield significant cost and energy savings in manufacturing, storage, and transportation while not requiring new machinery or investment.
One of the co-founders and designers of Unocup, Tom Chan, was just a sophomore when he came up with the original concept – a single unit with an origami-like lid that you fold into place to seal liquid inside, eliminating the need for single-use plastic lids. After countless coffee-shop interviews and more than hundreds of prototypes later, he and long-time friend Kaanur Papo founded Unocup, in 2019. It is a 100% plastic-free, compostable beverage cup that replaces the traditional lid with paper folds that seal the drink tightly. “When people think of sustainable solutions they think of certain compromises that have to be made. What’s really exciting about this is that it’s a sustainable and practical solution at the same time,” says Papo. It helps coffee drinkers want a cup that they feel will contribute to waste reduction, while still keeping the convenience factor. Unocup has recently won Fast Company’s Innovation by Design Award in the Packaging Category!
Continue Reading: This ergonomic paper cup was designed to reduce plastic waste generated by to-go coffees! | Yanko Design
With the rise of people choosing to pass on plastic, the range of more sustainable disposable items has skyrocketed. As a result, we are getting lots of people asking whether compostable coffee cups, straws, and cutlery can go in the food and garden bin.
Unfortunately, the answer is no. No matter what’s on the label, compostable or biodegradable cups, straws and plates can’t go in your food and garden bin. And here’s why.
The terms biodegradable and compostable are sometimes used interchangeably but they actually mean very different things. Let’s look at the dictionary definitions.
biodegradable
adjective
1. A substance or object capable of being decomposed by bacteria or other living organisms
compostable
adjective
1. Something that can be used as compost when it decays
This means that biodegradable items can break down within the environment with the help of bacteria or other living organisms. But this doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good for the planet. For example, some plastic bags can biodegrade into tiny pieces in around 20 years but they are still harmful to the environment.
Meanwhile, if something is compostable, it means it is made of organic matter and it can completely break down to make nutrient-rich compost.
They may be made from natural materials, and therefore compostable, but compostable coffee cups take years to break down whilst food and garden waste only takes six weeks at an In-Vessel Composting facility.
The only thing you can put in your food and garden bin (aside from food and garden waste) are compostable food bags with the EN13432 seedling logo on which are used to line the kitchen food caddy. These bags are made from potato starch so break down at the same rate as food and garden waste. This also includes Co-op’s new compostable carrier bags which are being rolled out across Greater Manchester.
So if it’s not food or garden waste, it belongs in your general waste bin.
Ditch single-use items and choose reusable alternatives. There are so many reusable coffee cups and straws available now. Lots of coffee shops give you a discount when you take your own cup in too! Why not put a set of cutlery in your bag so you can say no to single-use forks? Check out our blog post on reusable items for more great ideas.