Last year, the European Parliament agreed a new law banning certain single-use plastic products in the EU from 2021, including plates, cutlery and cotton buds.
Single-use plastic items account for the vast majority of litter found on beaches in Europe. Every year, it is estimated that between 500 and 1000 million disposable cups for coffee, ice cream and salad are used in Sweden. This is about 50-100 cups per person and year.
In a previous post we wrote about a really good initiative from Pressbyrån and 7-Eleven, through a campaign with Keep Sweden Clean, which gives the customer a reward in the form of a discount on the coffee if you bring your own coffee cup. This is to reduce the consumption of disposable cups. We think this is great!
Take away food
Could we bring the Keep Sweden Tidy campaign to restaurants? Why not bring your own lunch box when we buy takeaway food? According to the National Food Agency there are no rules prohibiting this. The restaurant owner has the right to decide whether or not you can use your own packaging, so you can always ask the question, right?
Reducing waste from takeaway packaging brings environmental benefits. According to a report from IVL Swedish Environmental Institute it turns out that reusable cups instead of disposable cups pay off from an environmental perspective. This is provided that the reusable cups are actually used enough times. A life cycle analysis of a disposable and reusable lunch box would probably show similar results.
The 2019 litter report
I Litter Report 2019 from Keep Sweden Tidy states that the litter in the EU's oceans consists of 80-85% plastic and half of it is disposable. An eye-opener is that on the west coast alone, the amount of litter floating ashore corresponds to about 120 bathtubs per day. That's a lot of rubbish!
So there seem to be two main things that we need to do to reduce littering. One is to simply stop littering - sort and dispose of your rubbish in the right place, definitely not in nature! The second is to use fewer disposable items, especially those made of plastic. That doesn't sound too difficult, does it?
Plastics facts - Taken from the 2019 Litter report
TRADITIONAL PLASTICS: Made mainly from fossil fuels. Often made to last a long time, making them very difficult to degrade once they enter the environment.
BIOPLASTS: An umbrella term for bio-based plastics and biodegradable plastics.
BIOBASED PLASTICS: Plastics that are made entirely or partly from renewable raw materials instead of fossil raw materials. Bio-based plastics act like "normal" plastics when they are released into the environment - they do not degrade. However, many people believe that the plastic breaks down. According to a survey conducted by Keep Sweden Tidy, every second Swede believes that a plastic bag made from cornstarch will break down and disappear if it ends up in nature.
Biodegradable plastics: Plastics that are manufactured to have a shorter shelf life. Can be made from both renewable and fossil raw materials. Requires special conditions to degrade. There is growing criticism of this type of plastic, as consumers can be misled into believing that it disappears into the environment. Biodegradable plastics can never be seen as a solution to the problem of littering.
OXO-DEGRADABLE PLASTICS: Oxo-degradable plastics are traditional plastics to which metal salts have been added to accelerate degradation. It is unclear how this degradation occurs in the environment and there is a risk that oxo-plastics are a source of microplastics in the environment.
RECYCLED PLASTIC: Plastic recycled from plastic. May be of slightly lower quality and contain undesirable substances. Is good from a resource perspective but problematic if it ends up as litter.
