Plastic alternatives - Denis the Dustcart Blog
Published: 14 March 2022
In his regular feature, Denis the Dustcart talks about Plastic alternatives and how in recent years there has been a huge rise in the number of people rejecting excess plastic.
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In recent years there has been a huge rise in the number of people rejecting excess plastic – a movement that’s come to be known as ‘plastic-free’.
I’ve always considered this a bit of a misnomer, because the movement isn’t about ridding the world of all plastic. At least, anyone wanting to live plastic-free should understand that some plastic is necessary or even preferable over potential alternatives.
Plastic is everywhere. Think how much we get through in a single supermarket visit. But perhaps we’re looking at this the wrong way around; perhaps it isn’t so much that there is too much plastic, but that there is too much stuff available that needs to be packaged in plastic to make it last, make it affordable, make it tempting, make it profitable.
If that plastic can be exchanged for another material, does this mean we no longer need to worry about how we consume products – or how many products we consume?
The aim of a plastic-free lifestyle isn’t actually to live plastic-free, but to do without unnecessary plastic. However, it would be missing the point to think we can just swap out single-use plastic for another single-use material and everything will be hunky-dory.
In fact, it’s very possible to do more harm than good by seeking to retain the convenience of our throwaway consumer habits while rejecting plastic.
Let’s have a look at some plastic alternatives to find out more.
- Biodegradable/compostable plastic
If you’re buying biodegradable or compostable plastic as a reaction to seeing plastic pollution in our oceans, consider that in the majority of cases this material will only break down at a high temperature in industrial composting. The ocean isn’t really very warm at all.
If you have a food waste collection, bear in mind that in Devon all food waste goes to anaerobic digestion, not composting. Anaerobic digestion is a method of turning food waste into soil improver while capturing natural gasses and generating electricity, but it will not break down bioplastic. Moreover, the processing plants don’t want bioplastic in the mix as it’s very stretchy and uses up a lot more energy to remove than other plastics.
Bioplastic is designed to break down faster in the right conditions, but those conditions are limited.
It may be made from a renewable source, unlike conventional plastic, but it uses a lot of land, energy and water to grow and to process the crops into the right compounds. The associated carbon emissions are high, and additives used in the processing can become an issue if the material becomes waste in the environment.
Moreover, it can’t be taken from your home with the rest of your plastic, and compostable cups can’t be recycled with standard disposable cups via collection schemes at coffee shops.
- Paper
Trees are good for the planet; pulping them into paper isn’t. It’s an energy-intensive process, requiring masses of water, chemicals and energy and producing a lot of wastage – solid and liquid.
Sure, you can buy recycled paper bags and then recycle them again, but there’s a limit to how many times paper can be recycled before its quality degrades to the point where it simply won’t recycle anymore.
Paper is also heavier than plastic, so transporting it requires more fuel.
OK, so it breaks down easily and doesn’t clog up the oceans when disposed of recklessly. But what this means is that it isn’t designed to last. Is that a good thing? Is it good to have used so much energy, water and chemicals in producing something that uses much more fuel to move about the world and is only meant to last for a short time – something that can’t be reused very much before it has to be recycled (i.e. has to go through yet another energy-hungry process to be turned back into something useful)?
There are reinforced paper bags, but the embedded carbon in those is far greater than in a plastic bag-for-life and they won’t last as long.
And then there’s the ecological impact of growing non-native tree species in monocultures. These are not biodiverse natural forests; they are crops, often unsuitable for supporting native wildlife such as nesting birds.
- Cotton
You’d have to use a cotton bag many hundreds of times before it became more environmentally-friendly than a weak plastic bag used just once.
Consider the water and fertilizers needed to grow cotton, the vast areas of land it grows on at the expense of biodiversity, the energy and fuel used in the processes of harvesting it and turning it into textiles and then in shuttling it about the globe until it goes on sale.
Growing non-organic cotton (obviously the most common type) means using a lot of pesticides – not good for pollinators, rivers, ground and air. It isn’t just the application of these fertilizers that is bad: their production requires the expenditure of an enormous amount of energy, which pollutes the atmosphere with a huge amount of carbon dioxide.
Furthermore, over time the amount of water used to irrigate cotton crops can make the soil less fertile and degrade it to the point that it is no longer able to hold carbon, instead releasing it into the air.
Organic cotton is much better, of course, but the problems of water, fuel and energy still exist with it.
If you have bought a load of cotton bags, reuse them until they die – which hopefully will be a long time. It will need to be.
Can’t do right for doing wrong?
Try not to get disheartened by the fact that there is no simple answer and no quick fix. You can still make a difference with your choices, although ultimately we are going to have to bring about a fundamental change in the way humanity goes about things.
Consumers cannot and should not have to bear the greatest burden of responsibility for saving the planet, but everyone still must do what they can and even the slightest shift can have positive repercussions.
Don’t think only in terms of how easy it will be to recycle something. Think about how something might be reused before being recycled at the end of its useable life. A classic example is reusing old detergent bottles for refills at zero-waste shops, but you can also get refills of salt, oil…loads of things.
And try not to get caught up thinking only about what happens when something ends up in the environment. It’s an important consideration, but not the only one. Plastic has its problems, but so do other materials. Some materials are worse at the end of their lives; others are worse at the beginning.
Bear in mind that recycling is a process, too. It is further down the waste hierarchy than reducing waste and reusing items. It uses energy, water and chemicals. It should only be considered better than disposal. It isn’t a solution in itself; it should be the final resort for people seeking to live waste-free.
Reduce where you can; reuse what you can; recycle the rest. Live gently.