I am sure we are all guilty of stashing plastic utensils in our homes and offices. We then toss them away into the trash can or recycling bin without a second thought. Do we readily keep in mind that it can take Styrofoam up to 100 years to biodegrade and certain plastics, up to 450 years?
Allen King and Steven Levine, of Excellent Packaging & Supply, are the forefront distributors of compostable and biodegradable food service products. Right off of the wave of the Styrofoam bans in Oakland and San Francisco CA, the San Francisco Chronicle highlighted this duo for their innovative products.
Excellent Packaging & Supply manufactures high quality plastic-like utensils made of a biodegradable blend of potato starch and soy oil, a collection called “Spudware”. They also have various other collections which range from plates to containers made from other organic matter.
Although this product is compostable, it does require the higher temperatures of a commercial composting facility, much like that of the anaerobic digestor that the non-profit, Earth Pledge, was working on. How great would it be if the city could partner up with the appropriate organizations and construct a city composting facility? That would definitely encourage the production and use of all of the available biodegradable and compostable products out there. It’s scary to see where all of the NYC trash goes. Such a resolution is needed so our kids aren’t dealing with our take-out trash.
You can find it under the following topic(s): Eating Out, Food, Green Business, Recycling.
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Actually, those figures on biodegrading have been proven to be sorely misleading, unfortunately. The famous Garbage Project conducted by Univ of Arizona found organic matter such as hot dogs as grapes from decades past that had not begun to decompose whatsoever because of the lack of oxygen in landfills. They also found a newspaper from 1952, which was completely intact (25yrs later.) Once this matter is compacted in a garbage pile, it becomes mummified as opposed to how we envision it, sitting out in the open, eroding quickly. This process keeps things in tact a much longer time than we had once thought!
That makes this, at least more organic ‘biodegradable’ product even more pertinent today.
January 8th, 2007 at 6:25 amI always try to reuse plastic silverware at least a couple of times- most of it goes through the dishwasher just fine. I buy really good stuff for parties and I’ve used the same ones for 4-5 parties now. I lose one here or there, but mostly it’s worked great. I think take-out is the place where I see the most wasteful use of plastic- the containers and the utensils….I don’t know what to do with it all except at least reuse it a couple times. All the offices I’ve worked there has been insane amounts of garbage that is just those containers. That’s why it’s important to have some kind of recycling program in offices…though most municipalities don’t recycle that kind of plastic. It’s really tough if you don’t cook for yourself and get food to go a lot. Anyone have any good ideas about what to do with all the extra containers?
January 8th, 2007 at 10:30 amWhen I was a kid, I always wondered why my mother liked to keep the plastic utensils and even the straws from when we would order take-out. I’m sure she just didn’t want to waste anything or throw out a perfectly good fork when it’s still whole and perfectly serviceable. But now I realize that it was a good way to reduce our waste output at home.
January 9th, 2007 at 3:40 pmToday I gave out coffee mugs at my office. I went to my local Stop and Shop and in the dollar aisle they had these really nice mugs for 50 cents each so I grabbed a case. People had their choice of pink, blue, purple and orange. I handed out some and put a sign up in the coffee room asking people to take a mug. In it I said,
“Imagine if everyone stopped using the Styrofoam cups every day and used a mug instead. In one year of daily coffee drinking how much garbage space would you save??”
Everyone loved them and I have decided to bring in a case at least once every two weeks until I get everyone using mugs for their morning beverages. Here at CA we have around 4,000 employees and more worldwide so hopefully we can get this thing rolling and make a difference.
Just wanted to pass this on to you guys so maybe you can encourage other people to do the same at their offices. It is such a small thing but as Mother Theresa said, “A few of us can do great things but all of us can do small things with great love.”
Add to that the smile you bring to a coworkers face by giving them something thoughtful.
Have a great day!!!
Corene
Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.
January 11th, 2007 at 12:36 pm– Dr. Seuss, the Lorax
Go Corene! That’s awesome……
January 11th, 2007 at 2:04 pmSuch a positive way to go about doing it too.
At my last office most people had their own mugs but some people still insisted on using the styro ones…it drove me nuts. But at least the majority used their own. There will always be those people that are too lazy to do anything…including wash out a mug!
So great what you did Corene!!! I am sure you have inspired your co-workers more than you know for taking that initiative. Hopefully the mugs can roll out to all your company’s employees.
January 11th, 2007 at 5:33 pmEnd of the Week Round-Up…
Here’s what’s going on online this week:
Texas-based pizza chain excepts Mexican pesos and they’re getting heat for it (via Murketing)
March 2nd, 2007 at 11:23 amTehran pollution kills 3,600 in one month (via It’s the Environment, Stupid)
Apple introduce…
I manage a 26 year established vegetarian restaurant in Royal Oak, MI. One step towards reducing waste that we have taken is, asking every carryout customer, at the time the order is placed, if they would like plastic utensils with their order, most customers do not need them!
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December 17th, 2007 at 11:32 pmYou do realize that reusing the plastic utensils, especially if they have gone through the dishwasher, may result in release of harmful and poisonous chemicals? The plasticware is intended for sole use only (unless indicated otherwise), so when you subject it to washing with detergent, dishwasher, etc. you may actually be hurting yourself. Styrofoam is an outrageous case alltogether.
April 14th, 2008 at 4:06 amYou’re better off carrying a wooden spoon :)
Our facotry is manufacturing disposable dinner plates,disposable salad plate and disposable bowl listing in your website.
Shandong Teanhe Green PAK Science and Technology Co., Ltd. is a professional manufacturer of pulp-molding and environment-friendly tableware and medical packaging products. With a total investment 450 million yuan and an area of more than 133,333 square meters, the company has been invested and established in three phases. Now the company employs more than 500 people with an annual output of 240 million items of pulp-molding and environment-friendly tableware and medical packaging products.
With natural wheat straw pulp as raw material, through scientific and technological processing; and added food-grade waterproof and oil proof agent, the pulp-molding and environment-friendly tableware products have the following good qualities:
1. Environment-friendly, nonpoisonous, harmless and wholesome.
2. Enduring120 ℃ hot oil and 100 ℃ hot water without deformation or leakage.
3. Fit for baking in microwave ovens, maintaining fresh and freezing in refrigerators and high-temperature cooking and boiling.
4. Having renewable value; characteristics of paper making regeneration, recycling use and resource conservation.
5. After natural variability, degradation and argillization, it transforms into organic fertilizer, restores to carbon dioxide and water and returns to nature.
6. Through spray coating and film covering, ventilation property of the products can be increased so that the products don’t stick rice and are hard to get soft when being frozen
Our products are accorde with FDA and Hong Kong SGS test requirement.
May 29th, 2008 at 3:20 amOur facotry is manufacturing disposable dinner plates,disposable salad plate and disposable bowl and tray listing in your website.
Shandong Teanhe Green PAK Science and Technology Co., Ltd. is a professional manufacturer of pulp-molding and environment-friendly tableware and medical packaging products. With a total investment 450 million yuan and an area of more than 133,333 square meters, the company has been invested and established in three phases. Now the company employs more than 500 people with an annual output of 240 million items of pulp-molding and environment-friendly tableware and medical packaging products.
With natural wheat straw pulp as raw material, through scientific and technological processing; and added food-grade waterproof and oil proof agent, the pulp-molding and environment-friendly tableware products have the following good qualities:
1. Environment-friendly, nonpoisonous, harmless and wholesome.
2. Enduring120 ℃ hot oil and 100 ℃ hot water without deformation or leakage.
3. Fit for baking in microwave ovens, maintaining fresh and freezing in refrigerators and high-temperature cooking and boiling.
4. Having renewable value; characteristics of paper making regeneration, recycling use and resource conservation.
5. After natural variability, degradation and argillization, it transforms into organic fertilizer, restores to carbon dioxide and water and returns to nature.
6. Through spray coating and film covering, ventilation property of the products can be increased so that the products don’t stick rice and are hard to get soft when being frozen
Our products are accorde with FDA and Hong Kong SGS test requirement.
website:www.teanhepak.com
May 29th, 2008 at 3:22 amemail:lqf20020101@163.com
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