Environmentally Friendly Options for Plastic Glasses

What do you with disposable plastic glasses when you have finished with them? Throw them away obviously. But we have a responsibility not only to dispose of them responsibly but to ask ourselves whether plastic is the best option to begin with. After all, in 2011, there must be other choices. What about paper cups? What about plastic glasses made from biodegradable plastic?

Plastic comes in a number of forms and they have different qualities. Let us take a look at the options and assess their relative strengths and weaknesses with a view to their environmentally friendly credentials.

 

Type 1 (PET & rPET): PET is a clear, relatively unbreakable, high quality plastic, most often used to make fizzy drinks bottles, fruit punnets, and premium smoothie cups. As a raw material, it is relatively expensive compared with the other types of plastic on this list and consequently plastic glasses made from it are more expensive. However, because of its higher value as a raw material, PET is a more sought plastic for recycling. This is the reason fizzy drinks bottles were, for many years, the first and only type of plastic packaging accepted by local authorities for kerbside recycling. rPET is PET that proportion of material that has already been recycled).

Type 6 (polystyrene): Polystyrene is one of the most common types of plastics. Many people think of polystyrene as foam packaging, but this is expanded polystyrene. In its unexpanded form it is completely clear and used to make all manner of items. For the buyer of plastic glasses, the advantages are that it is inexpensive. The disadvantage is that it has less flexibility than other types of plastic and this can cause the glasses to crack if too much pressure is applied. This is particularly noticeable with larger plastic glasses, which is why pint glasses tend to be made from polypropylene (see below). From an environmental perspective, plastic glasses made from polystyrene used to present a problem. The problem was that polystyrene was so common and inexpensive as a raw material, that it was not sought after as raw material for recycling. However, as prices for virgin polystyrene have risen and improved facilities for recycling and energy reclamation have been put in place, polystyrene is becoming as recyclable as PET.

Type 5 (polypropylene): Polypropylene is another very common type of plastic. It has a translucent appearance and has many applications, including yogurt pots, Tupperware, and flexible plastic glasses. The advantage for the plastic glass buyer is that it is relatively inexpensive and because it is shatterproof, it won’t leave shards of plastic as litter when dropped on the ground, thereby making the post-event clear-up that much easier. The disadvantages are that its lack of clarity can make cheaper flexible plastic glasses too flimsy to be fit for purpose and too opaque to make the drink look good. The good news for buyers is that good quality polypropylene plastic glasses can perform much better at the simple task we ask of them, and in addition (as with polystyrene), polypropylene is increasingly widely accepted into the waste stream for recycling.

For more information about the recycling of polystyrene and polypropylene plastic cups and glasses, the following sites may be of interest:

The Guardian – Campaigners Hail 'recycling revolution' as Plastics Collection Soar (Dec 2010).

WRAP – Information resource for plastics recycling, including Mixed Plastics.

Recoup – RECycling Of Used Plastics Ltd, a leading authority on plastics waste management and recycling.

Save-a-Cup – a not for profit dedicated plastic and polystyrene recycler.

Type 9 (other) (PLA): PLA is the shortened chemical name for what is commonly known as biodegradable plastic. There are various synonyms for it, including Bioplastic and corn starch. Just a few years ago, before the recycling of more common types of plastic was more widespread, PLA was the great new hope for an ecologically sound future in plastic glassware. Regalzone and many other manufacturers introduced a range of PLA glasses, and indeed we can still obtain them if your customers demand it. However, a number of severe disadvantages quickly became apparent: The term biodegradable was a misnomer: Yes, PLA does biodegrade, but only under the high temperature and humidity found in a commercial compost facility (if you could find one to accept it). PLA will not degrade as litter and PLA will not degrade on a domestic compost heap. This makes PLA about as biodegradable as an old boot, and they are still digging up old boots thrown away by the Romans. Perhaps the most environmentally damaging aspect of PLA is that it is most commonly disposed of into the regular mixed plastic waste stream, where it contaminates the regular plastic waste stream and renders it suitable only for land fill.  And finally, in an age when the world’s demand for food will grow beyond the land’s capacity to supply it, the plant material used to make PLA takes up valuable resources.

For more information about PLA, please visit:

The Guardian - 'Sustainable' bio-plastic can damage the environment (April 2008)

Wikipedia - PLA

Type 7 (other) (mixed) (paper): Paper is a sustainable and commonly recycled material that is used in the manufacture of paper cups. One might think that paper cups were the obvious solution to the environmental challenge of disposable cups and glasses. However, paper cups are not made from paper alone; to make paper cups or indeed any type of paper food and drink packaging capable of holding liquids, the paperboard has to be lined with polyethylene. This means that paper cups cannot be recycled like newspaper or copier paper because it is a mixture of fibreboard and plastic. For more information about paper cup recycling, the following sites may be of interest:

www.papercuprecycling.com - an alliance of the companies and organisations involved in the supply chain of paper cups used throughout the UK.

www.ace-uk.co.uk - The Alliance for Beverage Cartons and the Environment (ACE UK) represents the UK’s leading beverage carton packaging manufacturer.

Summary

Different customers have different priorities. Regalzone aims to offer choice and give the best advice it can to inform that choice. Here is a summary of what we believe are the relative merits of the various materials on offer:

	Advantages	Disadvantages	Environmental Friendliness
PET (type 1)	Clear, uncrackable, easy to recycle.	Relatively expensive, no stemmed glasses available	High
Polypropylene (type 5)	Relatively inexpensive, uncrackable.	Opaque, no stemware available	Medium
Polystyrene (type 6)	Clear, relatively inexpensive	Will crack under pressure	Medium
PLA (type 7)	Clear, biodegradable under the correct conditions.	Expensive, very difficult to recycle, likely to contaminate plastics waste streams	Low
Mixed (paper) (type 7)	Good consumer perceptions	Not ideal for serving clear liquids	Medium

 

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