8.3 billion tons of plastic were produced over the last 30 or 40 years and most of that plastic is still here with us today. In fact, it is likely that very same plastic will still be with us hundreds and possibly thousands of years from now. We currently produce nearly 300 million tons of plastic every year, half of which is used only once. Only 9% of plastic is recycled once and only 10% of that 9% is recycled a second time. More than 8 million tons of plastic is dumped into our oceans every year.
But we CAN stop the madness! Compostable plastics offer an alternative to further accumulation of the plastic currently ravaging the planet. Join us for an enlightening and hopeful conversation with Daphna Nissenbaum, CEO of TIPA. TIPA is based in Israeli and produces fully compostable flexible packaging—food grade and non-food grade bags and pouches for example—which account for the bulk of single-use, non-recyclable plastics.
TIPA’s compostable materials have similar properties to conventional plastics including transparency, flexibility, sealing strength, durability, barrier and shelf life. The difference is that when compostable plastics are exposed to a certain level of heat and humidity, they break down to create compost that acts as fertilizer for the soil.
With an infinitely scalable business model, TIPA is poised for exponential expansion. Their compostable films can be produced on convention plastic production equipment which they contract throughout their growing market. The biggest impediment to adoption may be the higher cost of the polymers used to produce the compostable films.
The question is, “Is it worth paying a little more to stop adding to the planetary plague of conventional plastics?” Daphna advises that the greatest impact we can make as consumers is to encourage our product providers to switch to compostable plastics.
In that spirit, Sustainability Now has launched The Compostable Plastics Pledge. The first step in our campaign to put an end to plastics is to encourage Trader Joes to switch to compostable plastics. Please sign the pledge and share widely in your networks to join us in shaping a world that works!
