Alternatives to Single use Plastic

We dispose definitely more plastic than we reuse or recycle. A lot of it is littered or gets away from the trash and head towards into our open spaces, corridors, streets, waterways, lakes, seashores, and eventually, the sea. 60–80 percent of all marine non-biodegradable waste and 90 percent of drifting garbage is plastic.

 Strength of plastic, lightweight, and cost-effectiveness make it a valuable material for numerous long-term uses.

But when we count up the environmental and economic costs of using a highly persistent material for a single-use disposable item, it becomes abundantly clear that, in most cases, those costs outweigh the benefits.

 

This plastic waste imposes costs on regional governments and organizations, makes navigational problems, and kills seabirds, turtles, dolphins, and other marine life. Studies are underway to understand better the threat, plastic pollution poses to human health. The durability of plastic, lightweight, and low cost make it a useful material for many long-term uses.

 

The creation of plastic is expanding overall, and half of every single plastic thing is intended to be utilized once and when used then discarded away. As per a study done by non-benefit group of researchers called 5 Gyres shorelines that 5.25 trillion bits of plastic, weighing 269,000 tons, is scattered over the ocean on the planet earth. 

While this is a global problem, producers of plastics can make changes by creating smarter products that acts as alternative to single used plastic which are biodegradable, reusable, or recyclable.

Mangalore-based organization EnviGreen is giving India substitutes to the traditional plastic bags, zip pockets, and stick wraps.

What they are doing is basic – they are making carbon copies of plastic bags made out of natural starches and vegetable wastes which on removal can become food for the animal around us. 

The expense of one EnviGreen bag is around 35-40% more than that of a plastic bag, in any case, is right now the least expensive option accessible in India to plastic bags. Another alternative to plastic is old fashioned – jute bag. They are more long-lasting, progressively strong, and are bio-degradable. These sacks can corrode naturally in two years. 

Every year 100 billion single-use cups in excess discards worldwide. Not only these plastic cups create a problem, but the paper cups themselves have a thin lining of plastic coating. The best solution for this is to choose a reusable cup or cups made of clay.

 

With remarkable tap water, there is no necessity to purchase filtered water and contribute to more than 100 million plastic bottles expended each day.
Glass items are a definitely naturally well-disposed choice: 100 percent recyclable, chemically inert, and vastly reusable. Other incredible alternatives are stainless steel and cork bottle.

Each year 40 billion single-utilize plastic or disposable utensils are created and consumed, they are not reused.

There are numerous alternatives, such as a nice stainless-steel pair is cheap,  eco-friendly, safe to use and easy to clean. Other than that, we can use utensils made out of copper, aluminium, glass, bamboo, etc.

 The alternative of some commonly used disposable plastic stuff such as plastic cotton buds can be replaced with fluid ear washes, bamboo cotton buds, organic cotton makeup pads or a reusable silicon swab; plastic straw or stirrer can be replaced with bamboo or stainless steel straw; reusable glass lids can be used instead of plastic coffee lids and plastic lunch boxes can be replaced with stainless steel lunch boxes or masonjars.

 People use toothbrush most likely for a couple of months and then discard. No part of our toothbrush if biodegradable. USA alone throws out a billion toothbrush per year. Just think how much the rest of the world contributes.

There is currently a wide scope of toothbrush, some toothbrush are degradable and produced using economically developed bamboo. Some have nylon fibres and some are totally biodegradable toothbrushes.

 

When it comes to dairy, it is hard to totally wipe out plastic, except if you are sufficiently lucky to have the option to acquire milk in glass bottles from your neighbourhood seller. 

One possible way is to purchase huge amounts of dairy items. This will create less plastic in the event that you pick a huge container over a little six-pack. 

The plastic microbeads found in many body and face washes are completely damaging to seas. Eight trillion of these bits entered the sea from the USA before the ban. The best alternative of this is to replace these items with an organic product such as walnut shell exfoliators, apple and honey facial scrub, and honey and oats scrub options. 

National Research Development Corporation (NRDC) and a growing coalition of waste management, community, environmental, and business groups support measures that would stop plastic pollution at its source by motivating and creating incentives for industries to utilize less single use plastic bundling for their items, make them recyclable, use alternatives of single use plastic and guarantee that reusing of non-biodegradable items really occurs. 

Expanded recycling and production of biodegradable plastic has additionally been exhibited to make occupations. Studies showed that a national objective of reusing 75 percent of the country's waste can make 1.1 million employments by 2030.

Sources

Economic Times

Zoetic Life

NRDC

WWF