Think reusable straws, wraps, and cups are always better for the environment? Think again.

[Rhiannon12866]

The climate, water, and energy footprint of reusable products depends more on how they are used—than how they are made.

Single-use straws and forks, plastic sandwich bags and wraps, and disposable cups can all wreak havoc on the environment. Many consumers are switching from these products to reusable alternatives with the assumption that these products are have less environmental impact.

A new study shatters that assumption. Although they are made from more environmentally friendly materials, reusable products are not necessarily always more green since their impact depends on how they are used. Some of these products might actually be worse for the environment than disposable plastic ones, the analysis published in The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment shows.

“This work pursues the misperception that reusable products are always better than single-use products, no matter what,” says Shelie Miller of the University of Michigan’s School for Environment and Sustainability. “In reality, reusables are generally better than single-use products, but they actually must be reused, and often reused a large number of times, to realize their environmental benefit.”

Bamboo straws and beeswax sandwich wraps have become popular kitchen items in recent years. They are often marketed as trendy must-haves for conscientious customers. But, says Miller, “reusable items are more durable than single-use items. Therefore, reusables consume more material and energy to make.”

So she and her colleague Hannah Fetner set out to compare the lifetime environmental impacts of both single-use plastics and reusable kitchenware products used commonly today. They calculated the global warming potential, water consumption, and non-renewable energy use of making four different types of products: drinking straws, sandwich storage bags and wraps, coffee cups, and forks. The researchers also considered different consumer washing and reuse behaviors, as well as local conditions such as the carbon intensity of different electricity grids. The goal was to assess the environmental breakeven point of reusables. That is, how many times a reusable product must be reused before its environmental footprint per use matches that of a single-use counterpart.

The researchers found that while the environmental impact of the disposable products was based on their manufacturing, that of reusable products depended heavily on their use and the frequency and method of washing. “It’s not the product itself that is inherently environmentally preferable, it’s how we choose to use it,” Miller says.


Read more: https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2021/07/think-that-reusable-straw-or-sandwich-wrap-is-better-for-the-environment-think-again/

[Scrivener7]

1. I wonder who sponsored this study. Their conclusions seem

odd. For example, they conclude that plastic sandwich bags are preferable to silicon because of the water used to clean the reusable silicon. And it suggests plastic forks are preferable to bamboo ones made with plastic because the bamboo ones take 12 uses to break even.

It sounds like Manchin saying reducing coal use is bad for the environment while pocketing 500k per year from coal.

[sl8]

3. They didn't say the bamboo forks broke after 12 uses, they said they "broke even" after 12 uses. n/t

[Scrivener7]

4. Ah. Thank you. Still, the argument seems flimsy.

But I fixed the post. Thanks again.

[love_katz]

2. Reusable items may help reduce long-term harm to the environment.

Plastic is infamous for not staying in the landfill. Plastic bags cannot be recycled, and bags and straws degrade into tiny pieces which usually end up in the ocean. Plastic is a petroleum product which doesn't biodegrade. I have invested in stainless steel straws, stainless containers with silicone lids, and recently purchased my first beeswax wrap, in an effort to cut down on regular single use plastic. I also buy compostable plastic bags in different sizes. The compostable bags have a shorter life when used to store food in the refrigerator.

[Scrivener7]

6. How do you like the beeswax?

[love_katz]

9. I have not used it, yet.

I just bought one to try it out.

[marble falls]

5. Totally forgot the energy in washing them, the anount of energy and resource to make one ...

... versus that needed to make a throw away. And how many reusable cups we have in the cupboard that are missing a cap or are just plain superfluous. And are also made from plastic.

We just don't use straws. But those reusable cups ... maybe a couple of times.

[I_UndergroundPanther]

7. Reuse

Everything I have that's reusable gets used. I have a steel water bottle I love I drink out of all the time.

Got reusable straws I use pretty much 2 times a week with my smoothies.

Use glass dishes and bowls, metal utensils
Got glass storage containers silicon bags or paper bags.

I am gradually replacing things to reusables like glass,biodegradables,wood,metal etc.

Currently looking for 2 glass gallon pitchers with lids for the iced tea.

However in an average home there is an incredible amount of plastic in it from sources beyond plastic bags and utensils,things like shampoo bottles and other bottles,wrap packaging on food,
stuff like peanuts used in mailing stuff or packages of stuff you order online...

you usually don't think about how much plastic you use ,it surprises you when you pay attention to it.

What really pisses me off are the individually wrapped cheese slices.

I Never buy that cheese.
Talk about ecologically stupid packaging.

How much plastic gets used a week in an average home.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/plastic-waste-pollution-2018-6%3famp

[marble falls]

8. Every piece in my studio is salvaged or used. I have paper sacks I use regularly for ripening ...

I've had for years, including the sack from DQ, I bought a Dilley Bar and a Buster Bar before the pandemic. I still wear shirts my dad gave me twenty years ago when he cleaned out his closet. The shoes, that I had resoled twice died about 10 years ago. I took the tongie of one and made a slingshot for my grandson. Other than tees and chef's pants and underwear, I buy second hand. I have and wear shirts I bought when I moved to Austin 23 years ago. Buy the best and take care of it, is my motto.

I buy second-hand cars and maintain them. Even my wife has been married before.

I'm not cheap, but I am thrifty and woke to the environment. We buy very little without a reuse.

I buy half empty tubes of oil paint, I buy used and "ruined" brushes and restore them. I pick up every bolt, nut, washer, nail, tool, I find on the street.

My point is: I never stopped to think about the energy that goes into new cups that are meant to stop trash.

We have to make trade offs. This one I never thought of.

[NNadir]

10. Life Cycle Analysis, an important rising discipline, does not give globally applicable information.

Last edited Tue Jul 20, 2021, 01:47 PM - Edit history (1)

Consider a straw: If one is washing a straw in an area where fresh water supplies are obtained locally, that's one thing. If on the other hand, one needs to have a tanker ship bring water from say, Germany, to California after drought dies up the water supplies, or even as is the case with the current California case, by the use of long energy driven canals and pipelines, the external cost of water is a serious, if often ignored.

A solar cell in Halifax, Nova Scotia, will have a different length of time to break even on the embodied energy involved in its production (and will usually completely ignore the external costs of the natural gas fuel and plants that are required for back up) than one in Arizona. A cell in Arizona may not last as long as one in New Jersey but one in New Jersey will spend part of the year covered by snow.

A wind turbine located at the Intertropical Convergence Zone (the doldrums) may not justify its heavy embodied energy and environmental impact.

Lifetime, particularly lifetime in a particular climatic zone, of a parameter that is often ignored. Lots of handwaving goes on in this area for so called "renewable energy," just as the low energy to mass ratios are ignored.

There are many commercial and open LCA software options, everything from the once widely used ECOSENSE, to more modern versions, appealing to various databases, that are appearing with increasing frequency in the literature. The degree to which they reflect local conditions, historical data, and the state of development, for one example, of recycling technologies and the external (energy, transportation, material, and environmental impact) costs thereof.

How expensive, really, is it, how much health risk is involved in recovering Indium from cell phones, consider collecting them, processing them, isolating the indium, and what is the recovery? These questions cannot be answered by handwaving and glib assumptions.

Generally, I will say, that Life Cycle Analysis is generally ignored for the most part, particularly when it flies into the face of public perception, whether that perception is accurate or inaccurate (climate change on the right, nuclear power on the left).

It is important to consider the full cycle, including the material cycle. For the most part, closed material cycles are not conducted, or are the subject to limited technological and economic viability. An example of things that are given a bye on having a closed material cycle that is often subject to handwaving and assumptions about being "green" are solar cells, which will rapidly transform into intractable electronic waste, wind turbines, which become landfill in about 20-25 years, this after shedding intractable polymers on their vanes, and batteries.

We have the tools and the technology to "Do The Right Thing," as well as recognizing our limits but we are culturally spectacularly disinterested in doing so.