Life Without Plastic Blog

Plastic Consumption On the Rise in India - Say Goodbye to the Tiffin Catering Services

According to Karachi News Net, plastic goods consumption is expected to double in the next three years in India, most of it from food packaging. This news outlines a scary trend. When Jay and I visited India back in December 2002, I was impressed with how little plastic was used on a daily basis. Families could not afford to buy plastic products that would not last. Instead, they would use stainless steel containers that would be passed on from generations to generations. Most of the food was freshly prepared as refrigerators were not widely available. Tiffin food catering services were used for offering office workers fresh meals delivered to their office  doors. This is all changing as mentality is shifting from the long term to the short term. The disposable consumption mentality is making its way deep into middle class India.

Check out this tiffin service in India called Zaika Tiffin service. For 50 rupees (about $1.00), you get rotis, rice, daal, two veggie dishes, salad and pickle. Delivered hot in a reusable stainless steel tiffin to your office door. I can't help but wonder how long it will take before these meals start being offered in disposable plastic containers.

We have been offering stainless steel 304 tiffins for sale at Life Without Plastic since 2006 and we have noticed a sharp increase in demand for these products in the past year. This is encouraging... Please let me know if you are aware of any catering service in North America offering its products in stainless steel instead of plastic. We would like to talk about them on this blog. Or if your local take-out restaurant might be interested in switching to re-usable stainless steel containers, let them know about us. We would love to partner with innovative Earth-conscious restaurants to start a new trend.

Chantal Plamondon, co-owner
LifeWithoutPlastic.com

Is "Recyclable" the Greenwashing-est Word Around?

Rachel Cernansky, reporter at Planet Green recently wrote that "a brand that claims it is helping the environment by manufacturing recyclable products is not doing much more than greenwashing"  (see Recyclable Is Not Recycled: Why Recyclable is the Greenwashing-est Word Around).  She gives plastic as an example of a product that is bad before, during and after its life cycle as a product. She is absolutely right. Only about 6.8% of all plastics are actually recycled. With such a small "success rate" you can safely say that in all practicality plastic is not really recyclable. Plastic is only marginally recyclable. In that context, taking pride of the fact that the plastic product you buy is green because it is recyclable is absolute greenwashing. I could not agree more.

However, compare plastic with a material such as stainless steel which is so desirable to metal scrap dealers that they will actually pay you to bring back your stainless steel (last time I heard, one could get more than $0.50 per pound for it), I would say that this is a genuinely "green" argument in favour of products made with such material. Stainless steel is extremely easy to recycle into new products through melting and re-moulding. But most of the time, you would rather keep your stainless steel products instead of recycling them because they can last for such a long time, all your life and possibly many generations and beyond.

Chantal Plamondon, co-owner
LifeWithoutPlastic.com