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If such unsustainable
products were really a “necessary evil,” we might not be
so critical of them. But there are viable alternatives,
and the future is going to be full of them. Instead of
designing for the dump, we can design for the
environment. This is one of the keys to a Zero Waste
economy. Zero Waste
requires that products be made from renewable and
recoverable materials, and emphasizes that throughout
their life-cycles these products must not pose a threat
to the workers who make them, to the consumers who buy
and utilize them, and to future generations who will
deal with the environmental impacts of their disposal,
reuse, recycling, or composting. Zero Waste products and
processes are not an idealistic dream; even today Zero
Waste principles are being practiced. Consider, for
instance, algae-based packaging foam and biodegradable
single-use cutlery. Here are two everyday products that
could easily replace some of the plastic, single-use,
and non-biodegradable items that fill our landfills and
create unnecessary waste and pollution in their
production.
Algae
Replaces Styrofoam
Ever wondered what
alternatives there might be to those bothersome
Styrofoam packing “peanuts” that seem lighter than air
and more ubiquitous than wire coat hangers? Here’s one:
biodegradable sea algae packing foam. That’s right—sea
algae. An Austrian research team has developed a
packaging and insulating foam from dried brown algae
that is proving to be a fine substitute for blown
polystyrene peanuts.
To make the material,
algae are first formed into a substance called
alginsulate by a process that uses either the whole
seaweed or the gummy cell-wall constituents called
alginates. Then, using puffs of air, the material is
formed into a spongy foam that can be molded into a
variety of shapes. Alginates are already widely used
industrially as thickeners in products such as ice cream
and hand lotion, and are also woven into gauze used as a
dressing for burns and wounds. Algae-based products are
made from a renewable resource and are
biodegradable—thus fitting nicely into the Zero Waste
vision.
Potatoes, Corn and Limestone Turned to Dinnerware
Put potato starch and
limestone together, and what do you get besides a chalky
spud? A biodegradable quick-serve food container, that’s
what! Green Earth, manufacturer of EarthShell products,
has recently announced that it will be producing bowls
and plates made from potato starch and limestone. The
Santa Barbara-based company will produce these goods at
its Dallas manufacturing plant as early as this year.
If you were at Longmont’s
Rhythm on the River festival last year, you wouldn’t
have seen piles of plastic forks and spoons in the
trash. That’s because those items were being composted!
Although it looks like and behaves like plastic, the
cornstarch-based forks and spoons used at Rhythm on the
River will easily break down in a compost pile into
earth-friendly byproducts. Plus, the cutlery is made
from a readily available renewable resource: corn.
Both the forks and
spoons, produced by BioCorp North America, and the
EarthShell products, produced by Green Earth, are
examples of items that can be made of non-toxic and
biodegradable materials—unlike the plastics in our
landfills and in our oceans (see “An Africa’s Worth of
Plastic!” above). We hope to see more such “Zero Waste”
products in the near future.
For more information on
EarthShell or BioCorp products, visit their websites at
www.earthshell.com
and
www.biocorpna.com.
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