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Reversing policies aimed to eliminate single-use plastics will do us more harm than good On one of his usual walks collecting plastic trash in Chennai, B. Gowtham recently noticed a goat wearing a discarded face mask. “It’s sad,” he says, adding how “over the years, awareness about single-use plastic has increased but the pandemic has reversed this”. With hygiene concerns…

A straw with our iced coffee, a plastic bag to carry our takeout, a wrapper on a candy bar: taken individually, each seems harmless. These modern conveniences are so ubiquitous—and so quickly thrown out—that they hardly register in our minds. But single-use plastics come with a steep environmental price—one that we’ll be paying off for millennia. Our plastic addiction is having…

Plastic is an incredible material, made to last forever. So what’s the deal with single-use plastics? Around 40% of plastics consumed are single-use. While convenient, they’re discarded after just one use. The amount of time, energy and effort that goes into producing, exporting and importing these products just doesn’t add up – especially if they’re made to last forever. Where do…

Background Information: In recent years, one packaging solution touted as a ‘sustainable’ option that has been emerging in Asia is Bioplastics and biodegradable and/or compostable packaging. But what exactly are Bioplastics and what does it mean when a company says its products are biodegradable and/or compostable? What are Bioplastics? There are many definitions for bioplastics, but essentially, a bioplastic is…