Alternatives to #6

When researching alternatives to Styrofoam, I found this interesting article comparing Styrofoam to paper on almost every website. I cannot believe that the following article is the message that is being sent out to the public:

Paper Cups Use More Raw Materials and Energy Than Styrofoam (And Cost More)

Paper Cups Don’t Biodegrade

Well, they do eventually (as does anything, eventually), but it takes much more time than I’d thought for a paper cup to biodegrade. The gubmint says, “Modern landfills are designed to inhibit degradation so that toxic wastes do not seep into the surrounding soil and groundwater. The paper cup will still be a paper cup 20 years from now.”

“A study by Canadian scientist Martin Hocking shows that making a paper cup uses as much petroleum or natural gas as a polystyrene cup. Plus, the paper cup uses wood pulp. The Canadian study said, ‘The paper cup consumes 12 times as much steam, 36 times as much electricity, and twice as much cooling water as the plastic cup.’ And because the paper cup uses more raw materials and energy, it also costs 2.5 times more than the plastic cup.”

I was shocked to read this and, unsure of what to believe, I read it aloud to my family on Sunday dinner night. My mother (rather knowledgeable and educated person) suggested that Styrofoam industries paid to have this study done and have Styrofoam advertised as the greener choice. My grandfather (opinionated ex-logger) said that paper was a renewable resource and logging provides many many jobs. I said that paper is recyclable and decomposable, whereas Styrofoam is not. Sure, paper may not decompose for twenty years, but how can this be comparable to Styrofoam that will NEVER decompose? The technology to recycle Styrofoam exists, however; it is extraordinarily expensive. For example, it costs 3,000 US dollars to recycle one tonne of Styrofoam ($42,000,000,000 to recycle all the Styrofoam in the world each year) and $89 to recycle one tonne of glass. Because of this, there is no Styrofoam recycling in the Lower Mainland and in 2001, the American Chemistry Council stated that less than 1% of Styrofoam in the US was being recycled.   

Karel Menard (of the Quebec Common Front for the Ecological Management of Waste) said:

"We always come back to the same thing. They say polystyrene is necessary for sanitation, transport, hygiene . . . but we did fine without it before."

"It's not about returning to the days of candlelit caves but of finding new solutions. If the Styrofoam manufacturers and users were forced, through legislation, to internalize its environmental cost, they would come up with a new, viable and sustainable alternative."

Some alterntives to Styrofoam are:

1. Bringing your own Tupperware container to restaurants for leftovers and always having a mug with you for beverages
2. Other products such as this takeout shell designed by Styrophobia - it is made of sugarcane waste pulp leftover from extraction and will biodegrade in your compost within 60-120 days:

I went out for lunch in Kerrisdale with my grandpa on Sunday and, because he is the slowest eater ever, he rolled up the remaining half of his burger in the paper place setting and put it in his pocket instead of having them package it up to go in a Styrofoam clamshell, like a normal person would. He said “see, I know how to handle these kinds of things.” Although I did not think about it at the time, in a funny way he really does because he avoided one extra piece of Styrofoam by re-using the paper on the table that would have been recycled or thrown away anyways.     

Metro Vancouver says:

"There are no good options in getting rid of garbage. The best option is to just not create it in the first place."

This quote correlates with what Charles Moore says about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch; that there is no way to clean the Garbage Patch up – the only thing we can do is stop putting garbage into our oceans in the future.

I was also reading an article about a man whose family of four had reduced their garbage to a couple of milk cartons full per week. I know that my family of three produces more garbage than that. The problem is that Styrofoam is used for so many things, such as packaging for the meat we buy at the grocery store.