6 things to note for environment-friendly disposables
By India Today Web Desk: In recent years, environmental degradation has been on the increase and it's an awfully important issue. Reducing pollution is through the utilization of environmentally friendly disposables. Eco-friendly disposables are thrown away after use, which can cause no harm to the environment.
They are completely pure and decompose faster hence don't contribute to environmental pollution. These things are mostly biodegradable and are natural products.
For decades, we have been polluting the environment with plastic disposables, obsessive about the environment.
Nowadays we examine many innovations to interchange plastic disposables with other forms of disposables that are eco-friendly, labelled as pro-earth, biodegradable, compostable, etc. With the global climate change emergency, water crisis and pollution can't afford to induce it wrong this time.
Many businesses in today's society have become more mindful of their practices and are finding new ways to become more eco-friendly and help tackle climate changes.
It's becoming increasingly common for cafes and restaurants around the world to be using these eco-friendly disposables. A number of these disposables include coffee cups made of bamboo, cornstarch plates, and wooden straws.
Sustainability means reducing our carbon footprint and retaining nature's cycle to return to earth whatever we consume. We want to travel back to a circular economy following the hierarchy of sustainability i.e Refuse, Reduce and Reuse, before Recycle and take away.
Here are few ideas for businesses that are showing the correct intent during this direction, but with misguided choices:
1. Disposables at dine-in
There is no sense in serving disposables for dine-in. Water consumed for laundry dishes is far but then that for procuring, manufacturing, shipping and buying disposables, then segregating, collecting and processing these.
2. Difficulty composting
Most of the biodegradables, compostables and disposables require industry conditions to urge composted, which are as long as segregated properly.
3. Areca plates
These are chemical-free and natural but composting these takes about six months and requires additional efforts like shredding.
4. Plastic packaging
Chips, biscuits and plenty of more are sold for hundreds of years but after the plastic invasion, it becomes unthinkable to pack every biscuit without the wrap.
The low-value the mixed material is employed, the more elite the biscuit or cake is the more the plastic wraps around it. The wraps increase the period, but this implies more stale products.
5. Delivering cutlery
Most people prefer to order food either at the office or from home, both places can have cutlery sets. Some like Fresh Menu even claim to own cutlery manufactured from cornstarch.
It's good to determine some online giants giving users the selection to avoid cutlery delivery, but we don't mind anything coming our way free. So let's make it 'no cutlery' by default, and let people add it if it's needed and pay a touch extra.
6. Paper bags vs reusables
Restaurants have started giving paper bags for food delivery but why not just have reusable bags, give only the food Dabba to customers and have your delivery person kept the bag for the following delivery.
We need to start out thinking of the full product cycle before calling something sustainable. Change must come from business design, right from inception.
A number of us refusing single-use can only bring forth most change. It ends up in personal satisfaction and inspires some but can't keep in step with temperature change.
Sustainability isn't a project or campaign. It's a mindset, way of mindful consumption, and owning the producer's responsibility.
