Half a trillion plastic cups are consumed every year — most of them being used for a single drink, then staying in the environment for eternity.
Only 1%-3% of non-reusable bottles are now not returned in Germany; recycling rates for cans are around 99%. Cookies sind kleine Textdateien, die auf Ihrem Rechner abgelegt werden und die Ihr Browser speichert.
But for those who just can't stop sucking — like Marco Hort, who set a world record with 259 straws stuffed in his mouth — there are environmentally friendly alternatives.
Beer packaging, it seems, is a recurrent, long-term problem for the industry. The easiest way to replace plastic cups is by using reusable mugs. But some of the figures being quoted may be misleading. The Indian startup Bakey's offers forks made out of sorghum; the US company SpudWares, out of potato starch. "The material that's collected is of high value and the businesses are very keen," Frank Welle of the Fraunhofer Institute for Process Engineering and Packaging in Germany told DW.
Germany has an almost identical system. Recycling companies process the empty bottles, turning them into PET flakes with a high level of purity that can be made into new bottles. That makes it suitable for colored bottles, but not transparent ones. Animals in the ocean often try to eat plastic straws. For customers, this means they pay a deposit on each PET bottle, which they can reclaim by returning it to a kind of reverse vending machine. "In any case, reusing is always better from an energy and climate protection perspective.".
Berlin is among German cities testing out a pilot project allowing coffee aficionados to borrow a reusable bamboo mug for a small deposit, and return it at another cafe at a later point. "It's an endless debate; the answer always depends on who you ask," Sundt said. | Mobile version. Another plastic product the EU would see gone are ear buds.
But hardcore environmentalists say it's best to stop using them altogether — you can use your towel to clean your ears. Wenn Sie auf der Seite weitersurfen, stimmen Sie der Cookie-Nutzung zu. However, they decompose best in a commercial composting facility, and not in your backyard. The Schwarz group, the company that owns the Lidl and Kaufland supermarket chains, has become the fifth-largest waste disposal company in Germany. One man is protecting the last remaining natural forest near India’s capital Delhi.
If you need to eat on the run and can't use metal silverware, you might try edible versions. It has developed a compostable bioplastic made from corn starch. Legal notice |
"Norway is very proud of its bottle deposit system," said Peter Sundt, general secretary of the European Association of Plastics Recycling and Recovery Organizations, and a Norwegian himself.
But COVID-19 is threatening their work.
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But some of the figures being quoted may be misleading. There are plastic-free alternatives with the stem made from bamboo or paper. Bottles in their thousands at a PET recycling plant in eastern Germany. Visit a German supermarket on any given Saturday and the queue for the deposit return machine for disposable bottles makes it clear how conscientiously Germans collect their PET bottles. Billions of plastic straws end up as waste. The Polish company Biotrem has developed plates made from bran. International media have carried the news that Norway recycles 95 percent of its polyethylene terephthalate — or PET — bottles, and social media has run with it, with a video posted by the World Economic Forum celebrating this impressive figure achieved through a tax and deposit system. Besides banning the private use of disposable plastic products, the EU aims to encourage fast food chains, cafes and bars to curb the use of plastic cups.
Plastic/glass bottles and cans without an Einweg logo or Mehrweg indication are not charged a recycling deposit. Log in, Diese Webseite verwendet Cookies. That means around 70 percent of the bottles' material comes from crude oil, while much of the recycled PET flakes get diverted into different products, likes plastic film and fleece for clothing. One of those companies is the Balinese startup Avani.
With the summer heat leading to increased beer consumption, some breweries in Germany complain about lacking enough bottles and crates.
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Recycled PET flakes are a valuable material.
At the end of last year, a study by British environmental consultancy Eunomia named Germany the world's best recycler, with the country recycling 56 percent of its household waste.