Plastic is the new enemy: the effects of its\nwaste is making headlines every day. If you are lucky enough to be in the first\nworld, you might start thinking about reducing your contribution to this global\ncrisis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first time my conscience started crying\nwas also the first time when I couldn\u2019t fit my empty mineral water bottles in\nthe recycle bin. It can\u2019t be the right solution, I thought, and soon after\nswitched to a soda machine that I have been using ever since. But nature and\nour own well-being are asking us more reductions, and there are already\nalternatives available to ease the pain for all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
No to\nplastic bottles<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The use of plastic bottles is so widespread\nthat it\u2019s obvious we have to do something about it. A complete or partial ban\non selling such containers is one of the options used by municipalities all\nover the world. Others try to find new ways of packaging liquids that do less\nharm to the environment. In London, March marathon runners got to participate\nin the largest trial of a new way of hydration. Capsules of seaweed containing\nsports drink were handed out to participants who could drink and eat the\ncontainer and, thus, produce no waste whatsoever. Other significant events are\nfollowing suit in plastic reduction: the Wimbledon tennis tournament introduces\na 100% recycled water bottle and refill stations, and Glastonbury festival bans\nsingle-use plastic while also rocking a new stage made entirely of recycled\nplastic waste. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Dropping\nthe bags<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The global consumption of about 500 billion single-use\nplastic bags yearly is like a feature from an eco-horror movie so another\nfavorite target for radical reducing action. Food packaging is also a field\nwhere startups pop up and try to offer a viable alternative. Mostly, this\nalternative is a biodegradable, compostable material that won\u2019t take hundreds\nof years to disintegrate and not even the smallest chunks of it can cause\nfurther problems. Polish MakeGrowLab, for example, makes the packaging out of\nagricultural waste and claims to be as flexible and water resistant as plastic\nbut it can also be eaten when not used anymore. Potato starches, seeds, and\nnanosheets of synthetic clay are also investigated as packaging materials that\nare easier to compost or recycle. Tropical regions have a more accessible and\ncheaper solution: a Thailand supermarket, Rimping, has already secured itself\nworld fame by using banana leaves as vegetable packaging – just as in the good\nold markets. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Don\u2019t\nstop till zero<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n What\u2019s even better than reusable, recyclable or eatable packaging? Of course, no packaging at all! It might seem like a time travel back to the Middle Ages, but only at first. Small packaging-free shops are not rare in cities already, and now we are seeing some more prominent players join the movement, too. UK stores like Morrison\u2019s, Sainsbury\u2019s, Waitrose, and Tesco are experimenting with packaging-free sales of fresh produce, dry food, and hundreds of other products. Drogerie Markt has put their two cents in by offering package-free liquid cleaning material in their stores in Prague, in the Czech Republic. And if a healthy Earth is not a strong enough motivator, customers can get eco-items 10-20% cheaper as usual. Going green is a bargain!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Written by Anik\u00f3 J\u00f3ri-Moln\u00e1r<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Plastic is the new enemy: the effects of its waste is making headlines every day. If you are lucky enough to be in the first world, you might start thinking about reducing your contribution to this global crisis. The first time my conscience started crying was also the first time when I couldn\u2019t fit my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9399,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eurideas.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eurideas.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eurideas.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eurideas.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eurideas.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.eurideas.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eurideas.com\/de\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eurideas.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eurideas.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eurideas.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}