Dr. Pragya Khanna
Vacations, for me mean
a lot of picnics and
anything to get out and enjoy the warmth and fresh air. The only drawback, besides sometimes the mosquitoes, is that this often means giving up metal silverware, ceramic plates, and real glasses for their disposable substitutes: plastic utensils and cups, as well as paper plates and napkins. Earlier, I've always thought this was a small price to pay for convenience. Who wants to carry home a basket of dirty dishes after a picnic? Still, many a times we do not find appropriate arrangements for disposing off all those tossable plates and cups and end up feeling guilty for creating a mess.
Lately, I had the chance of being out in the evening hours during Navratras and the crowded streets leading to a famous temple in the city were gaily bedecked with flowers, brightly-dressed devotees, tents serving free food and more.
Stuck in a traffic jam that refused to open up, I was in no mood to appreciate the festivities. Instead, at a standstill outside a busy food-stall serving free prasaad to devotees, I was horrified to find everyone throwing their used plates and glasses by the roadside. We inched ahead, but wherever I looked, all I could see was polystyrene (thermocol) plates strewn along the pavements. Unable to bear it any more, I accosted a couple of teenagers who were dumping their plates in the same heap.
"Why don't you throw your waste in dustbins", I asked mildly. The two boys scratched their heads, looked around and replied: "there aren't any dustbins around… Anyway, the municipality will clean this mess tomorrow!" The traffic stubbornly refused to budge but the boys fled. I felt compelled to carry on this scintillating conversation with my husband sitting next to me in the car. "Did you know," I asked him, "that the thermocol plates they've just thrown will stay just like this for 100 years, maybe even more?" He stared at me silently.
"Disposable plates are necessary for public events," he said indignantly, "they're hygienic, convenient and cheap!" It's not as if, he argued, that they were the only people who used thermocol. "Don't you also use the same glasses and bowls when you have parties or go on picnics?" he demanded to know. "Stand outside any party hall and you'll see food being served in these very plates!
The jam suddenly opened. We moved on, passing the temple bedecked with flowers inside and dirty stacks of thermocol plates outside. Whatever happened to the traditional leaf plates and terracotta glasses that we all once used? It seems they've disappeared in less than a decade. As I took a last look at a festering heap of rubbish and imagined it looking exactly the same after centuries, I realised that the time to change is now. But how? I for one don't know where to start.
Before discussing the reasons why polystyrene foam is bad for the environment and human health, I'd like to share an old joke that 'if you were reincarnated, you might want to come back as a polystyrene foam cup. Why? Because they last forever'. Lol!!!
De-spite being made 95 percent of air, polystyrene foam's manufactured immortality has posed a problem for recycling efforts. More than 3 million tons of the durable material is produced every year in the United States, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Very little of it is recycled.
Polystyrene foams are made from styrene, a derivative of the chemical benzene that is fused into long chains and then expanded using heat and steam. Because polystyrene products are so common, many people assume they are safe, and that a government agency, such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), would not allow a health-threatening product to be marketed to the public. But the EPA National Human Adipose Tissue Survey for 1986 identified styrene residues in 100% of all samples of human fat tissue taken in 1982 in the US. A study determined that Styrofoam drinking leach Styrofoam into the liquids they contain. The cups apparently lose weight during the time they are at use. The studies showed that tea with lemon produced the most marked change in the weight of the foam cup.
The fact that styrene can adversely affect humans in a number of ways raises serious public health and safety questions regarding its build-up in human tissue and the root cause of this build- up. According to a Foundation for Achievements in Science and Education fact sheet, long term exposure to small quantities of styrene can cause neurotoxic (fatigue, nervousness, difficulty sleeping), hematological (low platelet and hemoglobin values), cytogenetic (chromosomal and lymphatic abnormalities) and carcinogenic effects.
While, toxic chemicals leach out of these products into the food that they contain. These chemicals threaten human health and reproductive systems, these products are made with petroleum, a non-sustainable, heavily polluting and disappearing commodity and the product does not biodegrade. It crumbles into fragments that have no expiration date. A certain percentage of products will be dumped in the environment, persisting on land indefinitely as litter and breaking up into pieces that choke and clog animal digestive systems and waterways as well. The product takes up more space in landfills than does paper and eventually will re-enter the environment when landfills are breached by water or mechanical forces.
Studies also suggest that styrene mimics estrogen in the body and can therefore disrupt normal hormone functions, possibly contributing to thyroid problems, menstrual irregularities, and other hormone-related problems, as well as breast cancer and prostate cancer. The estrogenicity of styrene is thought to be comparable to that of Bisphenol A, another potent estrogen mimic from the world of plastics.
So the question arises what can we do? Use reusable cups at work instead of foam cups. When shopping for groceries, select items that are unwrapped, or wrapped in non-polystyrene materials: (e.g. vegetables, eggs, meat). Be aware of the harmful effects of using polystyrene products and tell others. Foam recycling is a public relations stunt, promoted by the chemical industries that manufacture it. This is done in highly centralized, distant facilities using complex chemical processes and expends far more energy than is ever saved by recycling the material.
Before getting to the substantiation and technical details of the above statements, keep in mind that you may have to persuade people who know far less than you do about such things. It is important to use the appropriate motivators and level of language, depending on whom you are speaking with.
However, disposable food packaging cannot be done away with; this is understandable. These products, though, can be made from a number of materials that are environment friendly and do not harm the human and animal health.
If we look at the history, the paper plate was invented by the German bookbinder Hermann Henschel in Luckenwalde in 1867. In 1908, Dr. Samuel J. Crumbine, who was a public health officer in Kansas, witnessed one of his tuberculosis patients taking a drink of water from a common dipper and water bucket (a publicly shared way of drinking water) while on a train. Right behind his patient was a young girl who drank from the same dipper and bucket. This inspired him to launch a crusade to ban publicly shared or common utensils in public places. Taking note of the trend Lawrence Luellen and Hugh Moore invented a disposable paper cup called the 'Health Cup' and later renamed the 'Dixie Cup'.
Single-use cone cups were followed the by commercialization of single-use plates and bowls, wooden cutlery, and paper food wraps. By the 1930s these products were widely used to feed the men and women who worked on the remote dams, bridges and roads of the Works Progress Administration. In the 1940s they were used to feed defence factory workers.
After World War II, foodservice packaging materials like plastic and polystyrene foam were developed. The unique properties of these materials (insulation and weight reduction) and their ability to be made into a variety of shapes and sizes provided foodservice operators, and consumers, with a wider variety of packaging choices.
The use of disposable foodservice packaging is a step toward preventing foodborne disease.
By being used only once, these products significantly reduce food contamination and the spread of diseases.
But, at what cost? Polystyrene is one of those materials that's everywhere around us. Polystyrene is an inexpensive and hard plastic and probably only polyethylene is more common in your everyday life. Did you know that the outside housing of your computer is probably made of polystyrene, as well as the housings of things like hairdryers, TVs and kitchen appliances? Model cars and airplanes are made from polystyrene, as well as many other toys. There's also foam packaging and insulation, and a lot of the molded parts on the inside of your car, like the radio knobs.
Polystyrene is also used to make drinking cups and food containers the hard plastic ones and also the soft foamy ones. When polystyrene is sent to the landfill, it is quickly covered and this process deprives it of water and oxygen, which would normally help it to break down.
Much of the disposable packaging that we eat from today will therefore still be around in 500 years.
A number of manufacturers are now making disposable foodservice products from a combination of natural starches, recycled fibers, water, air, and natural minerals. These composite products include cups, plates, bowls, cutlery, sandwich wraps, food containers and trays.
The material used to make these kinds of disposable foodservice products is primarily PLA or polylactic acid. Some products are made from a mixture of PLA and pulp fibers that are molded into disposable foodservice items with heat and pressure. Others are made from a composite or mixture of starch and other materials, such as limestone and recycled fibers, to give them additional strength.
Moreover, as a result of consumerism, which has pervaded our lifestyle, we are producing waste of complex composition to the tune of nearly 1,00,000 tones in urban India with a total 4378 towns and cities including 35 cosmopolitan cities, 393 class-1 towns, 401 class-2 towns and remaining small towns with populations ranging between 20,000 to less than 5000 (as per the 2001 census).
The core message of "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" is to consume less and produce as little waste as possible. It is an old slogan, but it is also a great maxim to keep you focused on the daily steps to create less waste. Did you know that the words are in the order of preference for real waste control? Reduce what you use first; then reuse what you do consume; and when waste is created, recycle it if possible. Changing your habits is the key, think about ways you can reduce your waste when you shop, work and play.
There are a million ways for you to reduce waste, save yourself some time and money, and be good to the Earth at the same time. |
