How Ukrainians can replace single-use plastic

During some last decades plastic has acquired firm positions in our daily life. We can think of no shopping without plastic bags, no picnic trip without disposable tableware, and, no – no evening walk in the city can go without cocktails poured in plastic cups, plastic straws stuck in it. On the one hand, everything’s simple and comfortable. Well, this is only the first appearance.

Imagine you: a small plastic cup taken to a picnic and then thrown out to landfill will degrade there for 50 long years, and a plastic cocktail straw nearby even full 200 years!

According to morphological inspection of waste in Poltava, completed by NGO “Ekoltava” in cooperation with NGO “Zero waste. Lviv”, the second place in the total amount of trash thrown away to containers for mixed waste is held precisely by polymers. Though within the town there are containers for separate collection of waste, people still drag to the same bin plastic bottles, take-away boxes for food, and disposable tableware. Consequently, landfills are filled with substances that take hundreds of years to desintegrate.

We make our today’s lives easier by neglecting our morrow. Not ours alone, but the morrow of the whole planet, too.

Plastic is not so nice as it may seem to be. Here are some exposing claims:

• Plastic is produced of non-renewable resource, that is, fossil fuels or raw material. Its carbon trace (LDPE or PET, polyethylene) is about 6 kg CO2 per kg. There are online calculators for definition of carbon track of polymers. A considerable part of greenhouse emissions generated by production of plastic comes from production of plastic tar, yet quantitative assessment of plastic share in greenhouse emissions must consider many variables, for instance, method of production, types of initial substances, methods of utilization.
• Plastic degrades for a long time. It does not degrade biologically.
• About half of overall plastic produced is for single use, that is, it is used once and then thrown away to landfill or dump;
• Plastic items have low potential for recycling.

One should remember that plastic, even of the highest quality, results from procession of oil. Once it contacts with acids from some foodstuff, or is heated, it may emit hazardous substances, which in turn harm humans when they get into their bodies. Chemicals from household plastic may provoke a number of diseases: they can cause higher risk of heart illnesses and diabetes, liver disorders, in-born pathologies, and development troubles.

Plastic harms not people alone, but environment as well. Globally, it threatens world’s climate. Plastic is made of processed crude oil and natural gas. Impacted by sunlight radiation, plastic goods emit methane and ethylene – greenhouse gases. By the way, methane causes even more powerful greenhouse effect than carbon dioxide. 

So what may be an alternative for disposable tableware, for example? Here we list a parade of its eco-friendly analogues: 

• biodegradable plates and cups of maize starch. This substance degrades in a compost-bin in 5 months. It does not harm neither human, nor environment. Today there are available eco-friendly plates to any liking, of any colour. 
• dishes of recycled straw. They turn to fertilizer after use. Straw belongs to “renewable” materials: every year grains are sown, so every year there appears a lot of straw, a potential material for full-size sets of dishes, forks and spoons.
• edible tableware. The item is eaten after the food itself. It may be equally a spoon from flour, as well as a cup from vegetable gelatin, a plate from beetroot, a cup from biscuits. Should one combine cereals and a grain of salt, one can get tasty coasters, even cutlery. The abundance of solutions is really great. It depends on cooks’ imagination and skillfulness.
• dishes from mushrooms and hemp. Plates, cups, other items are made of mycosubstance based on mushroom mycelium (mushroom tissue) and stems of hemp. This material is quite environmentally neutral, since it degrades in the ground literally in a month – month and a half and can fully replace plastic.
• dishes from beetroot. Beetroot is 100% biodegradable, does no harm to environment, safe for animals and good for soil.
• cups and plates from fallen leaves. It would be more precise to say, from paper made in turn of fallen leaves. This natural substance is quite safe for environment.
• tableware from coffee grounds. These cups and plates become fertilizer for soil after use, they are environmentally neutral and in basic use are not in the least worse than plastic ones.
• metal dishes.

There are green alternatives to polyethylene bags, too. 

• • Ecobags are an ultimate solution against plastic bags. They can be made of natural new or used fabrics. This is 100% ecological solution. Aside from their advantages, modern ecobags look attractive and fashionable.
  • Biodegradable zips – a nice choice both for environment and consumer’s comfort. They are good for grains, spices, frozen vegetables or berries (as they prevent their contents from spilling). 
  • Glass vessels. One may take glass container for shopping if one wants to buy dairy, meat or fish. 
  • Paper bags. They are suitable for lightweight foods (baked foodstuff, curds, sweets, sausages).
  • Bags from maize starch.

• Fabric bags.

The same goes for alternatives to plastic containers. For takeaway food, there are lots of variants as well. 

• Biodegradable containers. They may be made of maize or grain starch. Forms, sizes and models may vary: round and square, big and small, with or without departments. 
• Vessels from sugarcane. One of the most environmentally friendly packaging, as it is made of by-product, otherwise thrown away to dumpsites. Trays, tureens, cups for soups and beverages are also made of it. 
• Cardboard. Cardboard containers may be white or brown (the latter are considered more eco-friendly). Lunchboxes, bowls, soup cups, noodles boxes, special boxes for fried potatoes and burgers, wrapper envelopes are made from cardboard, too.

Along with conventional packagings, modern market proposes a number of solutions that walk in line with eco-friendly outlook: glass jars, customers’ foodboxes, vacuum bags, aluminium trays (for barbeques) and so forth.

So, as we have seen, there definitely is a number of alternatives to plastic goods. At this very moment, one can refuse from single-use plates, plastic cups, polyethylene bags, РЕТ-bottles, and turn to reasonable consumption, thus taking care of planet’s future.

This article is created within the Project «Inspection of solid municipal waste management in host hromadas during russian aggression in Ukraine», implemented within the Initiative of the development of environmental policy and advocation in Ukraine, that is carried out by International fund “Vidrodzhennya” under financial support of Sweden.