Image source: http://www.relatably.com/m/img/inexperienced-memes/af05ca76f430b01f3ddf30df1fecdc1c5afccf261c3dbf30bff852a6ccb42b24.jpg
What many do not recognize is that some of those products are pointless unless the enterprises and consumers using those products change their habits too.
Firstly those PLA coated biodegradable cups will not biodegrade in landfill so it of little use paying the extra money for those cups if they are simply thrown in the bin bags with the rest of the trash.
Biodegradable paper cups can create more waste of not properly sorted at waste reclamation sites, those new PLA coated paper cups do not look different from standard oil lined paper cups as a result this can actually create more problems. 99% of all paper cups used/sold at supply have an oil relying lining and are regularly collected for recycling, if however undoubtedly one of those PLA lined paper cups came into contact with those cups the natural lining would react with the oil relying lining and ruin the entire batch. There have already been stories of PLA bottles finding their manner into polypropylene recycling bins and contaminating their contents.
Another point to note is that recycling and composting is mainly a service carried out by local councils and much of councils treat waste differently from one area to another. Some will collect your waste plastic for resale (sold typically in the Far East) some will burn it for power, some send it to landfill irrespective of how you have sorted it at dwelling and paintings.
Removing land once used to grow food in order to grow crops for bio-fuels and alternatives to plastics also increases food prices, something everybody will have noticed in the last year
One of the main problems with the short sighted efforts of those (usually big) enterprises trying their upmost to be seen to be doing the right thing is that they do not consider where their rubbish goes, how those new products are made or how they have to be handled in order to make the most of their biodegradable properties.
There have also been stories of deforestation in parts of China to create space to grow those crops used for production of PLA and in the west we have been giving farm subsidies to farmers in Africa to grow most of the crops we are now using for PLA and bio-fuels plunging those individuals back into poverty!
Hundreds of websites have sprung up now offering biodegradable disposable tableware and to-go products.
Numerous enterprises all over the world are now offering for sale environmentally sound products, in our industry the most commonplace are the PLA (poly lactic acid) coated paper cups the likes of Starbucks and the different major coffee houses are employing in their desire to be seen as green. Many are now offering reusable ceramic mugs to drink in store, or that one could purchase and return with and obtain a discount.
