Sustainable materials are the challenge of the future.
It has been a known problem for some time, but it will certainly have an impact in the coming years.
The perception that plastic is an extraordinary material, invented by man, but at the same time a material that can destroy our lives and the ecosystem, is gaining ground every day.
Everyone thinks so.
There are many signals we receive, not only from the web, from the press, but from nature itself.
Every day the cry for help from nature increases due to our constant harassment.
Today, over 350-400 million tons of plastic are produced every year and they are all placed on the market, in our hands.
Few of these are collected and recovered.
Recovery is also a big problem and many technologies present on the market today and announced as solvers of the plastic problem, do not solve anything.
Plastic recycling is not the solution and more than 1000 million tons are expected to be produced and sold within a few decades.
In this situation, people don’t want to be made fun of.
Every day we will have to do everything in our power to make sure that people can understand what they have in their hands and around them.
Anyone who reads this article can do an experiment.
Look around and see if there are any packaging materials that are declared eco-sustainable.
Take them in your hands and try to understand if everything is clear and no one is making fun of you.
Make sure there is correct and easily understandable information.
I did the same thing.
I took a carton milk container in my hands.
The first thing one sees is the plastic cap and the carton holder.
Everyone perceives the cap as plastic, just polluting plastic.
While it is shiny and to the touch it does not look like carton but appears like a plasticised carton (sometimes it appears like plastic…).
Immediately everyone has the feeling of having plastic in their hand and something else, but certainly close to plastic.
Then, helped by curiosity, I discovered the part of the carton that explains to me why the one in my hands is considered a Green or eco-sustainable container.
I am safe, it is written and therefore it is true (everyone thinks so!) But is it really?
Let’s analyse these explanatory spaces and see if they convince us.
1) THE CAP
I immediately find an inscription that reassures me a lot and says:
“Cap and Coating of the package are obtained from sugar cane which is fermented to obtain the necessary raw material to the production of plastic without the use of fossil sources “.
How wonderful! It’s all natural, all different, we won. Anyone would be inclined to think like this, it’s normal.
No, none of this is true! Nobody knows that the material presented as natural is not natural at all. It is always PE (polyester) only that instead of coming from oil i’’s made from with sugar cane, but the industrial process to obtain it is the same and the PE obtained is identical to that obtained from oil with the same problems: that is, an indestructible, non-biodegradable material, and moreover with the subtraction of land for the cultivation of sugar cane to make polluting plastic, instead of using farmlands to feed animals and people.
Already from this first point, we start very badly.
But let’s keep reading to see if the hope of finally having eco-friendly packaging is possible.
2) “THIS PACKAGE IS OBTAINED FROM VEGETABLE SOURCES AND THEREFORE RENEWABLE”
How wonderful! It’s all natural, completely different, we won. Anyone who is inclined to think this is normal.
No, none of this is true! The fact that the source is renewable does not mean that the resulting product is a friend of man. Oil is also a renewable source. It only takes a little longer to renew itself, but it too is renewable and natural, but we get a plastic that is the enemy of nature and also of us human beings.
Unfortunately, the same thing also happens to plants that have a “renewable” cycle of only one season (a few months).
If the product or material I obtain is not aligned with the nature that surrounds us, I make the situation of the Earth even worse: do I sow to produce plastic? What’s more, is the plastic I produce identical to the one I produce from oil? It is identical … ..
The second point also doesn’t improve my enthusiasm.
3) LABEL THAT TELLS ME WHERE TO PUT THE CONTAINER
There is also a nice label, a list, all very clear.
It says:
CONTAINER C / PAP 81 = PAPER
HDPE CAP = PLASTIC
SEPARATE COLLECTION = check the provisions of your municipality
CONTAINER C / PAP 81 = PAPER. At this point no one can understand anything anymore.
What does C / PAP 81 mean? I connect to the INTERNET (because it is not written or explained in the package) and I find this definition:
The abbreviation C / PAP81 indicates a material defined as polylaminate with prevalence of paper, which combines paper on the outside and plastic on the inside (metallized polypropylene) able to guarantee a hermetic closure of the package.
And do I put this stuff in the paper recycling bin? Where exactly do I put the paper? But if it is not paper and it is a POLYLAMINE where there is polypropylene or polyesters, even metallized, what do they have to do with paper?
Then, if I venture to go and see how these plastics from sugar cane are born, which in the end have very little of natural, the result is disheartening.
HDPE CAP = PLASTIC. It is the only clear thing, even if I have to unscrew it and separate it from the packaging and throw it in the plastic. But I am immediately assailed by a doubt that disrupts the few certainties I had about the cap. What about the ring nut fixed to the package right under the cap, which is also made of plastic? What happens to it? It ends in the paper bin.
WASTE SORTING = check the provisions of your municipality. At this point we are at the absolute masterpiece of the question of all questions. You, the customer, check if where you live they are able to give you an answer on how to manage all these materials. At worst you will throw everything in the unsorted waste.
The third point makes me understand that we are still a long way off on sustainability.
My initial certainties begin to waver, but a nice stylised “footprint” lifts my spirits where the writing declares:
CARBON TRUST ZERO EMISSION PACKAGING
I connect to a beautiful website where there are online calculators which, based on the choice of the reference packaging, communicate the values at stake. Then I can see all the global investments in wind and solar panels, just to give an example. Finally a thing done well. They are long chains of positivity that after hours of study to understand how they work and where the benefits are derived, light up a glimmer of hope. You’re still doing this in front of a PC monitor. Let’s hope….
Then another statement: THE CARTON BOX IS FSC CERTIFIED.
Finally one thing clear, cardboard, which is cardboard, is FSC certified. Finally!
How wonderful! It’s all natural, completely different, we won. Anyone who is inclined to think this is normal.
No, none of this! It is as if I certify the coffee and milk separately. I do not certify a “cappuccino”.
Here unfortunately it is the same thing. The cardboard is laminated before being used and knowing that the cardboard alone is certified before being laminated does not reassure me at all. Indeed it worries me a lot.
Then, if I look at the package some green colours stand out particularly and this psychologically reassures me a lot. There is some green color. It is green.
No, it’s not green because that green is in the middle of a sea of plastic.
I have spent just a little while reading what everyone else can read too. I have read and understood, but maybe I understand because I know things a little more than anyone who reads these “instructions”. But not everyone can find this information and get they’re really saying. They can make fun of us with so many things, but let’s not be made fun of while having a glass of milk before going to work.
Postings in this Column
Read all the article Marco Astorri Column
- Have You Ever Planted a Tree? Well, While You Wait For It to Grow, Use Biopolymers Too
- The Sea Starts from your Home
- The Current Situation of Bio-on
- The Expansion of Bio-on
- The Start Up of Bio-on
- New Columnist on Bioplastics News
Disclaimer
The opinions expressed here by Marco Astorri and other columnists are their own, not those of Bioplasticsnews.com.