\u201cWe\u2019re seeing a tremendous acceleration in the demand for packaging alternatives as the unintended consequences of plastics become more visible, both locally and globally,\u201d says Kate Daly, of Closed Loop Partners, a social-impact investment fund that focuses on waste.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More conscientious recycling would be a boon, but it\u2019s no panacea. Recycling requires energy, water, and the transport of materials. Most recycled plastics get shredded, melted, and reformed into goods\u2014like lumber, fleece, or carpeting\u2014still eventually bound for landfills. Manufacturers continue to make bottles and shrink-wraps ever thinner, but the fact remains: plastics are made from nonrenewable resources, either oil or natural gas, and most never see a second life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Soon after the turn of the 20th century, food companies began using a flexible wrap called cellophane, made from plants. Chemists later imitated this bio-based polymer with polyvinyl chloride and later less toxic polyethylene, creating Saran Wrap. While cellophane was compostable, the oil-based films\u2014and the rigid plastic containers that followed\u2014were not. The stage was set for a throwaway future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Often working together, designers, engineers, biologists, investors, and recyclers are now striving to develop packaging that falls within the mandates of what\u2019s known as the circular economy. In the circular economy, material goods cycle in two separate loops. One recovers technical nutrients\u2014like metals, minerals, and polymers\u2014for reuse, and the other returns biological materials\u2014fiber, wood\u2014to nature through composting programs, or it converts them, through anaerobic digestion, to carbon-neutral energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of course, a compostable future depends upon universal access to\u2014and consumer participation in\u2014municipal compost systems, which collect organic materials for their conversion to fertilizer or energy. Hundreds of municipalities in the EU, Canada, and the U.S. are moving in this direction, but setting up a system can present a chicken-and-egg problem. In New York City, for example, the volume of available material far exceeds the capacity of nearby processors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then there\u2019s the problem of human nature. Fred Skeberg, a Swedish product developer and founder of the food and design website Ateriet, once found himself at a music festival where vendors served food on \u201cedible\u201d corn starch-based plates, meant to be tossed into compost bins. But people assumed their bowls and plates would disappear in nature, Skeberg says, \u201cand they threw it everywhere. So that backfired.\u201d As the United Nations soberly noted in a report, \u201cLabelling a product as biodegradable may be seen as a technical fix that removes responsibility from the individual.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Until systems and people are in sync, a great deal of compostable packaging will end up in landfills, where it can generate greenhouse gases. If compostables mistakenly land in recycling plants\u2014many plant-based plastics resemble their oil-based cousins\u2014they\u2019re considered a contaminant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTechnology isn\u2019t going to get us out of our waste conundrum,\u201d says Dayna Baumeister. \u201cHuman psychology has to change. At some point, you just have to say enough is enough.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Analysis:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n In contrast to the TIME piece about the history of recycling, this one takes a forward-looking approach, and explores the foreseen shifts which may be coming in the packaging industry. The emphasis seems to be shifting to the exploration of biodegradable materials. This insight, while promising, presents a whole new set of questions about the infrastructural and behavioral elements involved which still have yet to be accounted for.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cWe\u2019re seeing a tremendous acceleration in the demand for packaging alternatives as the unintended consequences of plastics become more visible, both locally and globally,\u201d says Kate Daly, of Closed Loop Partners, a social-impact investment fund that focuses on waste. More conscientious recycling would be a boon, but it\u2019s no panacea. Recycling requires energy, water, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3206,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-870","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-focus"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=870"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1596,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/870\/revisions\/1596"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/desis.osu.edu\/seniorthesis\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}