REFILL NOT LANDFILL
To buy promotional products that are ‘environmentally friendly’ we often consider only those items which are either plastic free or made from biodegradable or recycled material. There is however another approach to environmentally friendly and that is to choose items which are used repeatedly and not consigned to land fill. Or a product that replaces a landfill destined product. The idea is to think REFILL rather than LANDFILL.
1. Is a plastic water bottle environmentally friendly?
A polycarbonate drinks bottle made from Titan. More plastic? Well because of the nature of this bottle, which made from polycarbonate, it is likely that it will last years of usage. Unlike the cheaper polythene bottles the crystal clear polycarbonate is very hard wearing and does not scratch. After a couple of years the one in my gym bag is still going strong. Prior to using this refillable bottle I would use the standard supermarket bought supply of water packed in
The small disposable plastic bottles would have been put into the recycling – but compared to the Titan bottle – is this really environmentally friendly?
1. So much better to use a biodegradable bottle?
There are a number of water bottles on the market which are biodegradable. They are either made from a vegetable starch or from plastic with an additive which helps them breakdown to micro size pieces (actually this is not biodegradable and the worst possible material to use but that is a different post)
A biodegradable bottle (starch type) clearly advertises your brands environmental credentials. But is it the most responsible thing to put into circulation?
What will the end user do with the bottle – put into the waste stream for the bottle to breakdown in landfill? Well, it is likely given the lack of oxygen in a landfill that the bottle will actually breakdown because the microbial activity required simply does not exist in a standard landfill.
Will they place the bottle in the recycling? This could be even worse. The plastics in the recycling are manually separated and the starch type bottle resembles standard polythene so my end up in that recycle stream. The only problem from a recycling point of view is that the starch does not recycle and will contaminate the standard polythene waste.
What appeared to be a simple environmentally sound choice could do more damage!.
Hence a good environmental choice is to think re-use of products of REFILL and NOT LANDFILL.
