Our straw production line is up and running, producing truly earth-friendly straws that decompose naturally, without the need for chemical additives or elaborate composting requirements. Contact us today for a free quote!”
If you’ve ever popped open a can of soda, you’re surely familiar with the tab at the top of the can. And if you’re like most people, this tab has probably annoyed you at one point or another, especially if it becomes detached and then falls into the can with the rest of the liquid. As it turns out, you haven’t been using the tab properly. The tab on soda cans was designed to be flipped over again and used as a holder for your straw. Who knew, right?
Our home compostable straws come wrapped or unwrapped and up to 600 straws per bulk wrapping.
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How many cotton tote bags do you have shoved into closets and cabinets and your car trunk? If the answer is too many, but you’ve at least consoled yourself that you’re doing the planet good, bad news. In a piece for the New York Times on our “cotton tote crisis,” Grace Cook cites some disheartening stats: Cotton is a water-intensive crop, and offsetting the environmental impact of creating just one bag is a long road. Per a 2018 study out of Denmark, an organic cotton tote would need to be used 20,000 times to zero out the impact that its production had on the environment. “That equates to daily use for 54 years—for just one bag,” writes Cook. If you have more like 25 bags, that works out to a thousand-plus years.
And to add insult to injury, they’re really tough to recycle, in part because most compost facilities don’t accept textiles, and the scant amount of cotton that does make it to a treatment plant can’t be recycled if it features PVC-based logos, as many bags do. Cook dates the origins of the cotton-bag explosion to 2007 and a British designer and looks at how brands ranging from the New Yorker to the beauty brand Aesop have contributed to the problem. If this has you wondering whether plastic is actually the lesser evil, Cook definitely doesn’t go that far. “Lightweight plastic bags use greenhouse gas-emitting fossil fuels, never biodegrade, and clog up the oceans,” she cautions. The best bet might be skipping a bag altogether when possible. (Read her full piece for more.)
Source: Your Cotton Bag Isn’t Saving the Planet. Maybe the Opposite
Our products are sourced from the Earth and return naturally to the Earth leaving no heavy metals, chemical residue, or ecotoxicity. They are home compostable and marine biodegradable. This is what makes our straws AWESOME! Pura Vida Bioplastics is Mother Earth’s choice to replace traditional fossil fuel-derived plastics. Let’s Go Beyond Green and Redefine Plastics!
Most modern-day plastics are made from petroleum. How- ever, it is possible to make several different types of plastics from plant or even bacterial sources. This seems to offer hope that these bioplastics will be more environmentally friendly than their petroleum counterparts. The reality is that bioplastics and their contribution to sustainability are complicated issues. It’s important that consumers understand the properties of different types of bioplastics, what happens when they are disposed of, and whether bioplastics can truly reduce pressure on the environment.
Who sets the standards for what is and is not biodegradable or compostable?
The most recognizable international standards come from two international agencies, the American Standards for Testing and Materials, or ASTM, and the International Organization for Standardization, or ISO.
Plastics that claim to be compostable should also include labeling that says what standard the product complies with. For example, they may say that they comply with ASTM D6400 or ASTM D68681. One requirement of the ASTM standards is that 90% of the organic carbon in the product will be converted to carbon dioxide within 180 days in an industrial composting facility. In other words, the product will not compost in a home compost heap. Compostable bioplastics require the high heat and oxygen available in industrial composting facilities to properly degrade. If the products are not composted under these conditions, they will likely persist in the environment for decades or longer.
In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission provides guidance about the labeling of biodegradable or compostable plastics. It states, “Marketers should qualify compostable claims if the product can’t be composted
at home safely or in a timely way. Marketers also should qualify a claim that a product can be composted in a municipal or institutional facility if the facilities aren’t available to a substantial majority of consumers.”
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