New Eco-friendly take away containers
Here is a shot of the new takeaway containers for lunches at Atma Yoga.
Initially we used the same containers that are used at Govindas. Those ones are made out of polystyrene. Pretty quickly we shifted to sourcing our own made from waxed cardboard. Those ones were biodegradable, but these new ones take it to the next level. These new ones are made from pressed sugarcane.
Sakhi Rai prabhu is importing them from India, where they are made in a small eco-village by a community of disabled pygmies who all chant 64 rounds a day. OK, so I made that up, but they are imported from India, probably at a huge cost of carbon emissions and industrial infrastructure to ship them across the world to Australia. But, hey, you can feel all ecological when you use them here, as long as you ignore the complicating factors of the transportation. :-)
It would be better if we could get something like this produced locally, but in the meantime we'll use these.
Madhava Gosh The other point
Madhava Gosh
The other point to consider is that even if a plate is biodegradable, it won't biodegrade in a landfill. You actually have to return them to the earth to biodegrade either directly or via composting.
I wonder if you could feed pressed sugar bagesse plates to cows? Is it simply pressure that molds it or is there some chemical additive?
Waxed cardboard is
Waxed cardboard is absolutely not biodegradable. The wax is due to a paraffin type coating, which is petroleum based. This cannot be broken down in landfill.
Always remember to distinuguish between commercial/industrial and residential/municipal waste streams. Generally, commercial waste streams can divert more types of waste from landfill than residential.