Compostable Kitchenware

Try these: Potato Plates, an Environmentally Friendly Alternative. Potatopak NZ make disposables from waste potato starch - a naturally produced material which is 100% biodegradable and 100% compostable.

Winner of 1999 New Zealand Environmental Packaging Award.

a.. Suitable for all fast food
b.. Microwave re-heatable
c.. Freezeable
d.. Not harmful if eaten
e.. Countless applications
f.. Competitive prices
g.. Excellent insulation qualities
h.. Fully degrades in days after use

Contact: Richard M. Williams
Phone 03 579 1079
Fax 03 579 1089
Mobile 021 634 783
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.potatoplates.com

Dr Sue Jarvis

Chair
Lincoln Envirotown Trust
694 Gould's Road RD4
Christchurch 7674
phone: 329 5858
www.lincolnenvirotown.org.nz

Here's a couple of companies that wholesale biodegradable "one use" products:

http://www.recycline.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=34
http://www.excellentpackaging.com/pages/1/EPSNature.htm

We have found commercial composting facilities that can authentically process bio-polymers a lot harder to find than the polymers themselves. If anyone knows of any networks or resources for bio-degrading "hard" bio-degradables we'd appreciate leads.

Jeff Hohensee
Natural Capitalism Solutions

Susan:

Check into Trellis Earth. I received their promotional information at a recent trade show and saw their products, made of corn. They have cups, plates, garbage bags & cutlery. www.TrellisEarth.com Not sure about the sustainably produced criteria, but everything is compostable.

Theresa Cross, MS

RD CD Health Educator
Tobacco Prevention and Education Program
Clark County Public Health
1601 E. Fourth Plain Blvd.
Vancouver WA 98661
Mailing Address: PO Box 9825
Vancouver WA 98666-8825
360/397-8000 ext. 7378

Hello Susanne,

I'm working for a client in the US on a life cycle based comparison between bio-based service ware vs. reusable vs. styrofoam. In that work we uncovered a list http://h2e-online.net/teleconferences/getfile.cfm?aht=TeleconferenceMaterial&ahi=377 of bio-based service ware producers and distributors in the US.

The distributor for International Paper's Ecotainer (Natureworks PLA based) is Sevco Enterprises in Vancouver. Here is there website: http://sevco-foods.com/.
Regards,

Ralf Nielsen

Nielsen Design Consulting Inc.
863 Duberry St.
Ottawa, ON, K2A 3T2 Canada
t: (613) 761-1954
f: (613) 216-9477 (NEW)
[email protected]
www.nielsendesign.ca

One potential drawback with Natureworks PLA is that it's made totally from genetically engineered corn. http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=2328 Also, as noted by others, the "hard" bio-degradeables are difficult to compost, but possibly still disintegrate eventually whereas petroleum plastics don't. How about bamboo chopsticks, or is there a bamboo fork/spoon manufacturer? It would really be neat to see if you could get a University population to switch utensil styles!

Best,
Sally

This is interesting: bamboo is 100% compostable, fast-growing renewable resource. I don't know anything about the harvesting/utensil manufacture process though. Bamboo chopsticks cost about $0.34 a pair

http://www.webstaurantstore.com/third1265/products/disposable-chopsticks.htm

l Bamboo disposable dinnerware about a dollar/place setting (knife-fork-spoon), so about $0.33 for each piece.

http://www.bambuhome.com/html/productnews-veneerwareutensils.html

I found another corn-cutlery product that is not PLA-based, and claims to compost in 45 days. They sell in large quantities but you have to contact them for prices.

http://www.earthwarebiodegradables.com/products-c.html

Also ran across a post from a University composting person on potato-based plastic that suggested grinding the used utensils to increase surface area before tossing them into the composter. (The grinder probably uses some form of energy? Hopefully attached to a bicycle pumped by a U athlete on scholarship.)

Best,
Sally

I remember though while I was in Japan during the 1990s a national debate that resulted in the government encouraging citizens not to use bamboo or disposable chopsticks. Rather plastic, metal, or lacquer chopsticks were being encouraged; because of the sheer volume of chopsticks that were overwhelming landfills and proved to be non-degradable when disposed of in bulk. It would be interesting to know if the decomposition rates are based on individual items or whether efforts were made to establish decomposition rates when items were placed in landfills under or with larger amounts of debris. Will the cutlery product decompose the same way when under one ton of pressure? I suppose when they are talking about "compost" they really mean private home-based compost; which limits use to homeowners who have composting facilities. Not very practical, in this light. Or am I missing something. Very grateful for corrections of my point of view here!! Food for thought.

Thanks!
Peter Manda

Master of Public Policy Candidate (2009)
Edward J. Bloustein School of Public Policy and Planning
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey

I hope I'm not the only person who's concerned about the sustainability issues that seem to have been ignored in this discussion about compostable kitchenware. In a world where a billion people go to bed hungry at night, here we are discussing whether we can make plates or cups out of food products such as corn or potato. Surely our commitment to sustainability must include consideration of the global picture of which we're part. Just because I am well fed and can afford to buy compostable kitchenware made from a material which would be a highly desirable food in many other countries doesn't give me the moral right to make such purchases. My hope is that wealthy people like myself from the developed world would choose to buy kitchenware that can be cleaned and reused countless times, so that there is no need to consider whether it is compostable. In turn, the use of such long-lived materials reduces the amount of waste going to landfill and composting facilities, while also reducing demand for food-based materials which require fossil fuels in their production and which divert agricultural products away from their primary purposes.

Bernie

Very interesting point, Peter. I wouldn't have thought there would be a problem with bamboo! I wonder if they could be run through a grinder/chipper with different results.

Dear Bernie,

The issue you raise is really important. As has been noted, there is a carbon input and a detergent and water-usage concern in cleaning and re-using washable items. That is a global climate and pollution concern for all. I know this is a really difficult set of issues to figure for all of us, and I hope the goal is to bring everyone in the world to a level of having enough food as well as living in security on a sustainable planet. Our food growth and distribution systems globally are complex. There are huge barriers to distributing food where it is needed. That's admittedly a rationalization, but also a brutal fact. Do you have a way of disseminating this food to these specific populations, such as in Darfur, where the conditions are extremely hazardous? Before the food grown and harvested rots? I saw a TV program where two wealthy Americans took upon themselves to travel to and distribute their wealth, and foodstuffs, to various undeveloped communities of the world. They traveled to some pretty risky places and did an amazing thing, but they couldn't do it all. Are you prepared to take on a way for us all to do that? Each issue is being dealt with in small ways by various charity organizations, and there are movements to boycott, or maybe, in our relatively-wealthy cases, to not be so well fed. There are a lot of ambiguities in your message, and while there's a lot you can't do (unless you want to go to these places) there is a lot you can do. If you can afford to buy compostable kitchenware but feel it should be used to feed the hungry, then put your money into the charity organizations that feed them. Better yet, educate them to raise sustainable crops, and the thing almost impossible, erase the ethnically-driven violence and political dictatorships that create the barriers to food production and distribution. I don't think it's wrong to use technology to make sustainable/compostable products. I believe we can keep finding better ways to do these things, while still trying to provide what we can to others. If you're ready to give up your computer, electricity, sewage treatment, medical treatment, your own food, clothing and shelter, there are organizations that will send you to the places where you are needed. Move forward in the best way you think is right.

Sally

Dear sally,

The solutions are, I regret to advise, mostly political. US and European farmers are being massively subsidised (by between 30 and 80% of final sale prices of food) by their governments to produce food that is in excess of their needs. This causes either huge mountains of food to be created and stored, or it causes the farmers (or their cooperatives or their governments) to export food at prices below the cost of production to developing countries. This in turn causes farmers in those countries to turn to commodities that they can sell on their local or world markets at a profit. So this explains why farmers in Afghanistan produce opium instead of food; in Kenya, coffee foe export to developed countries; in Brasil, sugar for domestic ethanol production, etc. We rich people in developed countries spend our time discussing compostable kitcheware because the price of the raw materials are so low (thanks to subsidies) that it makes economic sense for us as individuals to do so. My view has always been that our first thought should be that it is wasteful to throw anything out, even if it is compostable or recyclable. Reuse seems to me to be the most sustainable goal that we should strive for. Only when reuse consumes more energy and resources than it is designed to save should be look at less green alternatives. I'm having an interesting debate at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6584 about the impacts of peak oil. When oil becomes much more expensive than it is today thanks to scarcity, we won't need to talk about compostable kitcheware since such items will be hugely more expensive, meaning that the sustainability of reuse will be greatly enhanced. I beleive that peak oil will see the end of agricultural subsidies, so there will be some positives to come out of the end of our profligate consumption of the world's limited supplies of oil. As for my ideas on how to better help people in developing countries, I have two suggestions. First, we must agree to the transfer of developed world technologies to these countries, so that they don't make the same mistakes that we've made in the past but instead can produce food and other commodities in the most efficient and sustainable methods possible. Second, I'm a great believer in micro-credit, also called micro-finance, as devised by the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. Not only must we give people in developing countries the knowledge of what to do but also we need to give them the economic ability to do those things. Distributing our foodstuffs to the developing world is precisely the wrong thing to do, except in emergencies.

My way of contributing to improvements in developing countries includes:

* donating money every year to a group in India that operates at the community level, providing micro-finance and stressing food production as an essential activity

* providing advice and information to friends who are currently working overseas (one in Cambodia, another in Belize)

* being active in groups such as Rotary International so I can help raise money for worthwhile projects (anti-malarian programs on the Indonesian island of Sumba).

For various reasons, I have chosen not to work overseas in these countries, partly because it's extremely hard work, partly because I don't have the personality to perform the role well, and party because there are enough environmental and political problems here at home that need to be worked on. I agree that there are issues of water and detergent use in reusable kitchenware. However, before going into compostable kitchenware, I'd encourage you to do a detailed life cycle analysis of the two types of kitchenware and make an informed judgement on the sustainability of each type before making a decision to use compostable items or reusable ones.

Thanks for your comments.
Bernie 

Bernie,

I agree whole heartedly that these are the problems the world faces, and you present very good strategies in combating them. But we have to manage with the technology we have at the present time while planning for and researching better solutions for the future. In terms of kitchenware and its relation to both food supplies and the environment, our fast-food restaurants and cafeterias won't shut down tomorrow and it would be impossible to have them serve take-out with re-usable items. Shifting away from the current plastic/Styrofoam and paper products made from trees, and quickly, to compostables that are currently available and much more enviro-friendly is a good short term goal. We are in a transition and as pointed out on the forum you note, we have to do everything we can to move away from petroleum. I think this is a sane decision. I have a hybrid car because that's the best carbon-saving technology available, and I plan my trips and drive little, but hopefully in the next ten years, hydrogen vehicles will be more widely available. European agencies plan to have the first hydrogen train operational by 2010, and there are already hydrogen buses and shuttlebuses in use. Ethanol is a much larger consumer of food stuffs than kitchenware, and I don't think corn ethanol is the way to go, but there are promising technologies for cellulosic ethanol from the chaff of food crops, switchgrass, and even algae grown in bags that grows by sucking the carbon out of smokestack emissions. Wow! And that technology could lead to making compostable kitchenware from the same "chaff" parts. Detailed lifecycle analyses have been posted before on this forum and elsewhere. So I have looked into compostable v. re-usable, and advocate re-use where possible with efficient washing systems, but I think it's more moral to use corn-potato-based compostables now (to replace petroleum plastics under circumstances where re-usables are not practical) than many things we rich folk do without thinking too much. (Like turning on lights, driving cars, heating our homes, ..)

Best regards,
Sally

Missing from the discussion so far on compostable items is the mention of the fact that NOTHING biodegrades much in a landfill. Contemporary landfills are designed to minimize water infiltration and are constructed to maximize compaction. The environment is anaerobic and remains so indefinitely due to capping. Studies of old landfills have unearthed decades-old food wastes in recognizable condition. Landfills are long-term storage for the detritus of civilization. The positive side of this is that the carbon deposited in them is sequestered almost as effectively as if it were a coal deposit. So, which is better -- storing the carbon in a landfill or returning it to the atmosphere by oxidizing it via composting? My answer is none of the above. Reduction makes more sense, which points to reuse of durable tableware. We should look at the energy cost of reuse to see if there are not options for improving efficiency. For example, cold-water washing (perhaps coupled with a disinfectant dip if necessary) would improve the energy usage considerably.

Joel Gagnon

Hi.

I wonder about this thought: "it would be impossible to have them serve take-out with re-usable items". Why couldn't we start a movement to bring our own containers in a bag or something to a restaurant (maybe a Tupperware type of light carrier) for any food we wanted to carry home? It doesn't seem all that complicated to carry a bag with a regularly-sized light container to a restaurant and back (home or to the office). shrugging shoulders< Food for Thought.

Thanks!

Dear Sally,

Another contributor made the very good point that modern landfills are designed not to allow oxygen and moisture into the discarded refuse, so that none of it decomposes or composts. This leads me on to suggesting that we still haven't worked out the best way of handling our domestic wastes. Germany seemed to have the best solution: all domestic waste from one town went into one facility where everything recyclable was sorted and collected, all combustible material was burnt at high temperature to produce electricity, and all remaining inert material was sent off to landfill. These types of facilities don't exist in Australia because of the cost and problems of air pollution - it's been impossible to meet all emission guidelines. If such facilities could be made to work well and to be cost effective, then combustible kitchenware could make more sense as it could be burnt to produce electricity, substituting for fossil fuels.

Best wishes
Bernie

Sally Mayasich wrote: I agree whole heartedly that these are the problems the world faces ... But we have to manage with the technology we have at the present time while planning for and researching better solutions for the future.

I believe that is right. The problem is global and it requires a global solution, but that does not mean that we do nothing until "They" design and effect that global solution. Something that requires such a broad variety of inputs will grow most naturally and effectively from a web of small, local solutions. We therefore need to maintain and pursue efforts to deal with each of our local or small-scale challenges in parallel (I labelled my own project "Drop By Drop", to illustrate how a small-scale solution, if worked by enough people, can make a major impact). But we need to keep the scale of the global problem very much in mind. There are other tenets which we need to maintain, loud and clear. The chief one is expressed in the Gospel According to the Environment, Ch. 13, v 13: "And thus abideth Reduce, Re-use, Recycle, these three, but the greatest of these is Reduce." "Recycle" is only the third sister of this trio - necessary, but only as a last resort when the first two cannot be applied. Environmentally-responsible living is not just about finding ways to dispose of all our present-day living surpluses in "environmentally acceptable" ways, but also about reducing acquisitions to what is actually needed (and occasionally desired), and to use up what we already have or to share/give away what still has life in it. Inasmuch as the impact of (for instance) people buying only half as many tee-shirts per year will cause markets in cheap-labour countries to slump, then our Environmental campaigns need to be coupled to Replacement schemes (e.g. local sustainability projects) financed by channelling to them the money that would have purchased those (probably quite unnecessary) tee-shirts. This is a trivial example of how acting locally needs to be linked to thinking globally. Western-style demands may have generated third-world economies, but how much more sustainable (for us all) if they develop environmentally-sound projects and education of their own. Christmas (or, more sarcastically, Cashmass) is approaching, when people spend large amounts of money on trinkets and on gifts that etiquette somehow requires yet no-one needs. I like the idea of giving donations instead, maybe to an overseas project to develop and promote sustainability, e.g. bringing irrigation to some named villages or region to enable crop-growing and to free human resources for such activities. Christmas may only come once a year, but it must be responsible for generating a whole year's worth of plastics and packagings. I was a war-time baby, and in my childhood our Christmas decorations were mostly home-culled greenery, and the very occasional glass bauble was precious because it was rare. I can also recall how Mother filled the customary fruit bowl with special items on Christmas Eve, and even now, whenever I smell a real tangerine, I flash back to those Christmas-time treats - it was the only time of year we actually saw real tangerines, and their rarity value made them particularly enjoyable.

Elizabeth Griffin
(Victoria, Canada)

Hi All

Peter asks: Why couldn't we start a movement to bring our own containers in a bag or something to a restaurant (maybe a Tupperware type of light carrier) for any food we wanted to carry home? It doesn't seem all that complicated to carry a bag with a regularly-sized light container to a restaurant and back (home or to the office). I've done this! :-) Just take an empty (sturdy, tightly sealed) reusable container with me, ask the people to put your salad/baked potato/stir fry or whatever in there, take it back to your workplace (or put the lid back on when you finish eating) and wash it. Then lo and behold - you can use it all over again! The tricky bit is remembering to take the container with you, and even 'waste nerds' like me can forget. Put a prompt by the door at your workplace 'remember to take your reusable bag', 'remember to take your reusable lunch container'. You might get a few curious looks the first time, but think of yourself as a walking ad for a 'zero waste lunch'! Others will see what you are doing and it will at least get them to think about the issue. Why not organise a 'Waste Free Lunch' challenge for your workplace? I understand that a number of schools do this: www.education.vic.gov.au/about/events/rubbishfree/about.htm - Victoria, Australia

Cheers,
Sharon Ede

Research/Project Officer (Greening of Government)
Zero Waste SA
www.zerowaste.sa.gov.au

An interesting discussion! Missing from the discussion so far on compostable items is the mention of the fact that NOTHING biodegrades much in a landfill. Contemporary landfills are designed to minimize water infiltration and are constructed to maximize compaction. The environment is anaerobic and remains so indefinitely due to capping. Studies of old landfills have unearthed decades-old food wastes in recognizable condition. Landfills are long-term storage for the detritus of civilization. Stuff stays intact - I can't recall where I heard it (could be an urban myth) but an excavation of the now-closed 'Fresh Kills' landfill in New York (which at one point was impeding the flight path from the airport!) unearthed an intact newspaper from 1969 complete with headline of the moon landing!! There is a danger that people will become complacent about resource use, and associated energy use, if they are lulled into a false sense of 'biodegradable security' ie. there is an 'end of pipe' solution which in part absolves us of responsibiilty for consumption choices. The positive side of this is that the carbon deposited in them is sequestered almost as effectively as if it were a coal deposit. At the same time, stuff does degrade - 'the science of landfills is not exactly an exact science' (to quote my CE, whom I just discussed this with), and one of the major concerns now about biodegradable material going to landfill for waste authorities everywhere is that degrading organic material generates methane, which is 20+ times more potent a greenhouse gas than C02. Most of the Australian Greenhouse Office 'Greenhouse Friendly' abatements are those which capture methane from landfills: www.greenhouse.gov.au/greenhousefriendly/abatement/projects.html

Makes sense to capture it now, but ultimately do we want our energy from a source we are trying to eliminate? So stuff stays intact AND degrades? How can this be? Biodegradability is a 'how long is a piece of string?' question - it depends. On the site, design and management of the landfill. On the materials themselves. Whether biodegradables are put inside plastic bags and then sent to landfill (! welcome to the illogical world of waste!). Waste is the end point in the life cycle of material - materials are energy carriers. Why spend money and energy on material to turn it into waste, and then money and energy in managing waste? Makes more sense in terms of money, materials and greenhouse to design waste out of our living patterns wherever possible. ....I recognise that this is a work in progress, and discussions like these are helping us think our way through these complex issues!

Cheers,
Sharon

Thanks Elizabeth. Another good Christmas present would be canvas grocery sacks, maybe even fancied up a bit to get people to enjoy using them!

Best,
Sally

This isn't a bad idea, already done by lots of people with coffee mugs/Thermo bottles at coffee shops, but might be tricky to carry out (no pun intended) in other places. We have a legendary hamburger joint in town, locally founded and owned for over 40 years. In peak summer season the lines go out the door. Ordering at the counter is already a bit chaotic. They also serve soups, salads, cole slaw, potato salad, and chili which come in plastic or Styrofoam containers. I can imagine the confusion and delay if even one or two people came up with their own containers and asked they use these. Regularly-sized containers would have to be available from some standard source, or it would throw pricing off. The salads are already in the containers to save time, and they just pull them out of the refrigerated counter, so it's too late there. An incentive might be having to pay a deposit on containers, as is already practiced by some states for cans and bottles. I guess my biggest question of all of these ideas is, how do we bring them into practice? If we just do them ourselves we won't make much headway. People will look at us funny and not follow along. I have been using canvas grocery bags for the last ten years and in all that time I've only seen (literally) two other shoppers bring their own bags or boxes. Have people started at city councils, schools, state legislatures, or.? I'd really like to hear some specifics.

Thanks,
Sally

Actually not true. Lots must be happening under landfills, because landfill gases are a huge issue. So the carbons are certainly not tied up in landfills. I have done a number of ecological risk assessments at landfill sites, most have been sitting for decades uncapped before all the environmental regulatory issues are tied up and closure is accomplished. Even after capping, what to do with the gasses and leachate are still big issues. Here are two views about using the gases for energy

http://www.energyjustice.net/lfg/ and http://e85.whipnet.net/outlook/landfill.gases.html

I also suspect that since the plant materials used in compostable items would have either decayed naturally anyway, or would go through some animal's or human's digestive tract and then decay naturally, that there have always been and always will be carbon released and re-sequestered by plants (growing on the compost of old organic material) as part of the natural carbon cycle.

Here is a home composter that looks interesting. http://www.thinkandask.com/2006/092406-russ.html

As I noted to others, reduction may make sense, but how do you apply it to the millions of customers at restaurants (especially fast food but also others) every day?

I concede that I oversimplified a bit. Meaningful amounts of methane are produced by landfills, especially while they are being actively constructed and for a while following capping. Methane production tails off after capping. I know this because I am a member of a citizens group monitoring the status of one of our (now closed) county landfills in my neighborhood. Perhaps there is someone else in the group who can better explain the limits of anaerobic decomposition, since my chemistry background is somewhat inadequate to the task. If I remember correctly, oxidation depends on electron transfer, and in the absence of oxygen, other compounds must fill this need. They are in limited supply. Also, the environment is altered in using them, making it less favorable to the organisms responsible for decay. This is what happens with fermentation, which is anaerobic. The drop in pH from the production of acid (or the toxic effects of alcohol if the reaction stops there instead of going on to vinegar) stops the action. The methane produced by landfills is a serious concern because of its much greater impact on warming than CO2. Capturing and using (or at least flaring) that methane is highly desirable. Not generating it in the first place would be better yet. As Sharon Ede said: Waste is the end point in the life cycle of material - materials are energy carriers. Why spend money and energy on material to turn it into waste, and then money and energy in managing waste? Makes more sense in terms of money, materials and greenhouse to design waste out of our living patterns wherever possible. Bernie Masters in a recent post suggested that a rational waste handling system would recycle what could be recycled (or reused, I might add), burn what can be burned of the residue with energy recapture, and landfill the rest. Here in the US, so-called "waste to energy" facilities have been built in a few places, but their proliferation has been resisted by many environmental groups for several reasons. For one, the capital costs are fixed, so there is an incentive once they are operating to maximize throughput. Consequently, there is no incentive to recycle that which can be burned instead. There is also serious concern about heavy metal pollution due to the toxic components of the waste stream such as nickel-cadmium batteries. Even when the wastes are diligently searched prior to consigning them to the flames, these are easy to miss, and most of these plants do minimal sorting. Until we ban toxics to keep them out of the waste stream, we would do better sorting stuff out of the waste stream to burn rather than stuff not to burn. It is because waste handling is so complicated and expensive that reduction makes so much sense, with recycling to handle as much of what remains as possible as the second option in desirability. With respect to the functional difference between biodegradable and plastic dinnerware, when it comes to what ends up in a landfill, I maintain that there is really no advantage to biodegradability. Unless this stuff is truly compostable and ends up in a compost pile and not in a landfill, there is nothing to recommend it. Moreover, to the extent that it contributes to landfill methane production, it might actually be worse than the plastic it displaces. Ideally, there should be no landfills. Nature doesn't work that way and neither should we.

Joel

Paul,

if everyone had your healthy values and simple lifestyle, the world wouldn't have such problems! I'm afraid there are some people that value only their own pleasures, or are unaware that their behavior causes problems for people around them. Take smoking as an example: Cigarettes became popular around the time of WWI, about 90 years ago. In about the last 40 years we've known the risks and have seen plenty of studies and media ads telling us smoking is bad for you. But there are still plenty of smokers. The only things getting people to quit are better medical quitting methods and ordinances against smoking in public buildings. We DO have to tell people how to live if it affects others. How about alcohol? We all know what happened during Prohibition. People then made, bootlegged, sold, and drank alcohol illegally. Demand did not go away. Violence in the supply side got so out of hand that Prohibition was repealed. If you talk about sustainable behavior in terms of crime, obviously there are prisons full of people whose behavior we can't seem to change. It's like the sayings, "locks keep the honest people out" and "preaching to the choir"-we may only be able to change the honest, conscientious folks' behavior. But these are both addictive habits. So, after the last few years of media bombardment that developed societies are obese, and every day on the morning news shows there are tips on how to lose weight, STILL McDonalds stock (just as one fast-food example) just hit its 52-week high last week. Why is this? There is some connection to food addiction, but maybe it's just that people don't want to change their behavior unless they are forced. The problem is, there is not one cause of obesity, and a small percentage of the population can't help being obese; you can't discriminate against obese people and you can't attack hamburgers like you can tobacco or alcohol. Banning a substance hasn't worked, and the driving force behind any of these products is profit. We can limit the distribution and use of tobacco and alcohol with laws, but it would be similar to the 1960's sell against smoking, the 1970's zero population growth campaign, and Prohibition to try to shut down fast food. Behavior shunning fast food will be extremely slow to change, and legislators would currently laugh at ordinances to ban fat, salt, and sugar. BUT, we could ban plastic containers (resources have to be managed because people have very different ideas on how to use them-and profit from them) and we NEED to do that fast! We COULD make some ordinance to replace them with either re-usable or compostable items. We COULD work to force establishments to change their lightbulbs, honor requests to use the customers' containers, . So, again, we change what we can, and keep working on people to change their behaviors, and we keep trying to find new ways to solve the problems. I wish we could all live simply and not need any high-tech solutions, but the population of the earth is too high for everyone to have the luxury of home-grown foods. Large population concentrations (and even small-town populations) producing large amounts of non-degradable waste has to be remedied quickly. Compostable items is one part of the solution, re-use where we can is another. Let's get moving.

Sally 

Hi:

Actually, Sally, there are a few economic studies that show American productivity and GDP went up during prohibition. & McDonalds will be successful only so long as local restaurants prove themselves not so reliable in quality and price. Anyway, on the grocery store question (sorry for the late reply): In the 1970s the Austrian (or was it only the Viennese - I forgot) government imposed a ban on free bags at grocery stores. Patrons were forced to spend 10Schilling to purchase a bag if they didn't bring one along. In today's dollars, that is about US$1.50 per bag. At first everyone grumbled, but after a while, most people realized that they were doing something for the environment. Today, someone who expected to get a free bag at the grocery counter would look pretty silly. A campaign could include adding cause marketing on the bags that are purchased at the grocery store: "Look what I'm doing for the environment." Or "I just bagged another bag." Stuff like that. Collective action is feasible. But, then in the US we would have to erase from our mind the idea that government intervention affects our Hooverian notions of "American Individualism".

Thanks

The problem with the campaign to ban free plastic bags at the supermarket check-out is that it is 99% symbolic and barely 1% effective at making a genuine environmental difference. In our two person household, we reused these bags once at least, sometimes 2 or 3 times, whereas now we have to buy extra plastic bags to use as bin liners and we wrap our kitchen wastes in newspaper which would otherwise be recycled. My back of the envelope calculations show that, in Australia, 6 billions plastic bags weighing 4 grams each weigh a total of 24,000 tonnes compared to the nation's annual domestic refuse total of some 20 million tonnes, i.e., 0.12% of the domestic waste stream. Surely people concerned about the environmental impact of waste should pick on something other than free plastic bags that is going to make a more significant difference to the waste problem in developed countries like Australia (and Austria).

Ah,

that's a very good argument and mathematically convincing. But I think we are talking of incremental change - what each of us can do. And if I look at my own conduct, I have to admit, I'm not doing enough (or, rather, this wonderful group has raised my awareness and mind's eye significantly --).

Thank you!

At a craft fair in Kelowna last weekend was a very neat young woman selling biodegradable wooden cutlery - It is made in Lumby BC. It is back yard compostable and made from incidentally harvested birch and aspen... web site is www.aspenware.ca the young woman mentioned that many people do reuse them... they are aesthetically pleasing too...

Theresa Healy, Ph.D.

Adjunct Professor
Dept. of Gender Studies
and the School of Environmental Planning
UNBC, Prince George, BC. V2N 4Z9
email: [email protected];
cell phone: 250-565-1955

Hi Bernie,

The problem with the campaign to ban free plastic bags at the supermarket check-out is that it is 99% symbolic and barely 1% effective at making a genuine environmental difference. Surely people concerned about the environmental impact of waste should pick on something ... that is going to make a more significant difference to the waste problem. Absolutely right. BUT, though largely symbolic, it serves as a familiar training-ground in Awareness Raising. The training is simply getting people to think about what they acquire, and whether it is necessary. We won't get very far with fostering sustainable behaviour unless or until people develop greater awareness of certain facets of their own current behaviour. The purpose is not just to provide ready-made fixes that enable the world to carry on as at present, regardless. Change won't flourish unless performed voluntarily, and demonstrating small wastes in everyday matters is one way of starting the essential thinking process. Electric lights are another somewhat slow-return saving because they are relatively cheap to run. However, it is remarkable how many people put lights on unnecessarily, or don't think twice about just letting them burn. Again, urging people to switch them off when not needed is another aspect of the basic training of analysing one's actions and acquisitions. God said, "Let there be light", so we switch it on - as if it were a human property to need artificial illumination at all times. Some city-dwellers who move to the country find themselves unaccustomed to its being so dark, so they run bright sodium lights in their front and back yards all night.

Elizabeth Griffin
(Victoria, Canada)

Joel,

As you said: I agree with that and that is why we need to set sights on phasing out plastics and styrofoams. But as I said before, reduction may make sense, but how do you apply it to the millions of customers at restaurants (especially fast food but also others) every day? We can talk about reduction and how it makes sense, but there has to be an alternative, or several alternatives, or it won't happen. I really don't think that is true, and not the big picture. Landfill gases in 2005 accounted for only about 2% of the CO2-equivalent units into the atmosphere compared to fossil fuel combustion at about 79% (see the Fast Facts at http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/usinventoryreport.html ), and landfill gases can be mitigated. Styrofoam and most plastic food containers are not recycled or even recyclable, are produced from petroleum, and never go away. Compostable items would have a minuscule contribution to carbon emissions whether they are composted properly or placed in landfills, compared to the problems related to plastics and petroleum/fossil fuels in general. Also, keeping compostable items out of the landfills by offering more composting facilities has to be part of the overall plastic-phase-out plan.

One more note from the EPA climate change website documents: In addition to being combusted for energy, fossil fuels are also consumed for non-energy uses (NEUs). Fuels are used in the industrial and transportation end-use sectors for a variety of NEUs, including application as solvents, lubricants, and waxes, or as raw materials in the manufacture of plastics, rubber, and synthetic fibers. CO2 emissions arise from non- energy uses via several pathways. Emissions may occur during the manufacture of a product, as is the case in producing plastics or rubber from fuel-derived feedstocks. Additionally, emissions may occur during the product's lifetime, such as during solvent use. Where appropriate data and methodologies are available, NEUs of fossil fuels used for industrial processes are reported in the Industrial Processes chapter. Emissions in 2005 for non-energy uses of fossil fuels were 142.4 Tg CO2 Eq., which constituted 2.5 percent of overall fossil fuel CO2 emissions and 2 percent of total national CO2 emissions. So, total U.S. emissions for 2005 were 7260 Co2 equivalents, fossil fuel combustion 5751, landfill emissions 132, and NEUs, including plastic and rubber production and use, 142. Compostable kitchenware items that I have looked into (Earthshell) take less energy to produce, as well as not being made of fuel-derived feedstocks. I know it's not a no-brainer. It's all hard to figure out, but maybe gives us the numbers to exert some influence at the higher levels of community organization.

Thanks again,
Sally

Hi All

"Landfill gases in 2005 accounted for only about 2% of the CO2-equivalent units into the atmosphere compared to fossil fuel combustion at about 79%
(see the Fast Facts at http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/usinventoryreport.html )"

To my mind, these figures are a furphy! They depend on what kind of accounting method we are using, and I believe this one is tunnel-visioned :-) For interest, an assessment prepared by Warnken ISE for SITA in February this year examined the potential for GHG abatement from waste management and resource recovery activities in Australia (I have a 390 kb, 47 page pdf of the paper if anyone would like a copy, please contact me). The essence of the paper is that: 'The solid waste industry currently accounts for 2.7 per cent of net greenhouse gas emissions in Australia. However, this initial analysis has demonstrated that with improved performance in resource recovery, a significant abatement of approximately 38 MtCO2e could be made, which represents a 6.7 per cent reduction of Australia's net greenhouse gas emissions (2004 figures).'

Still thinking 'well, its only 6%'? Also see: www.tec.org.au/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_download&gid=244 - where the following raises concerns about the long term 'greenhouse safety' of landfill and flaring... 'As Australia grapples with its response to climate change, one disturbing fact has been ignored...every tonne of degradable waste dumped in our nation's landfill sites today will still be a greenhouse gas liability in 2050. The reason is that waste materials with degradable organic carbon, including food, paper, garden and wood wastes decompose and emit gas when buried in landfill. This landfill gas contains methane, which has a global warming potential 25 times that of carbon dioxide. Put simply, if action is not taken to stop the greenhouse legacy of landfill, up to 85 per cent of Australia's carbon budget in 2050 will be accounted for by waste and therefore unavailable for future wealth creating activities. Even with existing measures such as the capture of landfill gas emissions, waste could be a disproportionately large component of Australia's national emissions in the future. This means that other sectors could have to exceed their emissions reduction targets in order for the nation to meet its global greenhouse obligations.' In relation to pollution, the focus has moved from end of pipe to prevention, similarly we must shift the focus from solid waste (end of pipe management) to prevention. We need to rethink our understanding of waste in broader terms of demand, use and disposal of materials and resources, and the GHG impacts which are attached to each phase of the material pathway.

Cheers,
Sharon