What Is a Carbon Footprint?

Climate change can be overwhelming. The science is complex, and when it comes to future impacts, there are still a lot of unknowns. While real solutions will require action on a global scale, there are choices you can make in your day-to-day life to lessen your personal impact on the environment. This guide will walk you through some of them by choosing the right dinnerware set in daily life.

Carbon footprint is determined by the following points during your daily life:

• Approximately how many miles you travel by car, bus, train and plane.
• The energy usage in your home.
• How much you spend shopping. 
• The composition of your diet. 

While here we are talking about some things that could help you lessen your personal environmental impact by choosing the right dinnerware materials.

One of the most common discussion points for any business that uses dinnerware is the materials used in creation. Many of us are unaware of the immense damage that our choices of cutlery and dinnerware can have on the environment. Instead of looking for alternatives, most of us either use expensive single-use plastics that have a large carbon footprint, or we use expensive, easy to break dinnerware. These require lots of washing and cleaning, though, and can also become hard to dispose of when they reach a point where they cannot be used. In terms of your carbon footprint, though, can biodegradable disposable dinnerware help?

Over the years, many options for compostable cutlery, utensils, and dinnerware have come on the market. Some of the most popular today, though, include things like sugarcane, corn starch, and moulded pulp. Each of these can provide a safe, sanitary, and recyclable way for your business to start cutting down on its carbon footprint massively.

These are useful for making sure that you know that your business is using a "green"option that can help you to spend less time worrying about your environmental impact. Instead of using short-term solutions that might work today but cost you (and the planet) tomorrow, change to something entirely compostable.

What does biodegradable disposable dinnerware do for my business?

In short, it allows you to know that you are using single-use dinnerware that can easily break down naturally. As opposed to lying in a landfill for years at a time, compostable dinnerware can easily be broken down in a period of days as opposed to years. It also is made from natural resources, so it will break down and then compost into something that the natural soil can actually work with and benefit from. As opposed to poisoning the ground with synthetic creations that harm the environment, compostable dinnerware can be broken down much easier.

A research has been done by Julie Zhu and her research team of Northeastern University in 2020, they have designed a set of “green” tableware made from sugarcane and bamboo that doesn't sacrifice on convenience or functionality and could serve as a potential alternative to plastic cups and other disposable plastic containers. Unlike traditional plastic or biodegradable polymers — which can take as long as 450 years or require high temperatures to degrade — this non-toxic, eco-friendly material only takes 60 days to break down and is clean enough to hold your morning coffee ordinner takeout. This plastic alternative is presented on November 12, 2020.

This photo shows a woman handling tableware made from bamboos and food industry waste. Credit: Ruby Wallau/Northeastern University

The tableware the researchers developed also comes with another advantage: a significantly smaller carbon footprint. The new product's manufacturing process emits 97% less CO2 than commercially available plastic containers and 65% less CO2 than paper products and biodegradable plastic. The next step for the team is to make the manufacturing process more energy efficient and bring the cost down even more, to compete with plastic. Although the cost of cups made out of the new material ($2,333/ton) is two times lower than that of biodegradable plastic ($4,750/ton), traditional plastic cups are still slightly cheaper ($2,177/ton).

(Reference: https://scitechdaily.com/this-disposable-tableware-made-from-sugarcane-and-bamboo-breaks-down-in-60-days/)

This allows your business to ensure that you have less of an environmental impact. For those who are trying to cut down on their costs, too, it can also help to reduce your carbon footprint. Across the year, a more ethical approach to your carbon footprint can help your business to save large sums of money. Also, it can have an ethical boost to your reputation; today, people want to see businesses that care about the country and its environment.

By making the change to using biodegradable disposable dinnerware and compostable cutlery, you make it easier for clientele to trust your business has their interests at heart. That is why you should look to make a change to easy to use disposable dishes; this can help your business to make sure it has less of a negative impact on the environment in the weeks, months, and years to come. Is that not an investment that is worth making? Is it not worth making an effort to ensure that we no longer harm the environment for the short-term gains of our business and commerce?