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Carbon footprint of reusable Trash Hero Bottles found to be 95% less than single-use plastic bottles

by Seema on 07/12/2020 1 comment

We all know that switching to reusables instead of single-use for everyday items like cutlery, food packaging and water bottles avoids a lot of plastic. Reducing waste and pollution is usually the main motivation for people who choose to reuse.

In addition to this, a recent study has also quantified the climate positive impact of the Trash Hero reusable bottle, by avoiding the greenhouse gas emissions associated with single-use plastic, as well as the money saved in the long term.

In 2019, René Mettler, a masters student at ETH Zürich, carried out research into the cost-efficiency of reusables vs. single-use systems of delivery. In one of the case studies, he compared the carbon footprint of consuming single-use plastic bottles of drinking water with refilling a Trash Hero stainless steel bottle with the equivalent amount of water at a hotel in Thailand. It was shown that the reusable system not only avoided plastic waste, but also reduced costs and greenhouse gas emissions. [René Mettler (2019). How to tackle the plastic crisis – a project-based cost efficiency assessment.]

How this was worked out
The study looked at the full life cycle of the two types of packaging systems only, not the water used to fill them. “Full life cycle” means: extraction of materials, production, use, disposal and any recovery of materials.

300 “usage cycles” were measured for each option, i.e. 300 single-use plastic bottles vs. 300 refills of the Trash Hero bottle.

The calculations were made using the following key assumptions:

Plastic bottles come in a standard weight and size (600ml, made up of 17.4g mixed plastics).
A fixed amount of water, heated to 60°C, is used for cleaning the reusable bottles and the 20 litre reusable drinking water tanks used to fill them. Note: the study was conducted in Thailand where it is not possible to drink water from the tap.
Emissions from transport are neglected as they are expected to occur within both systems on a comparable level and to be relatively small overall.
All plastic bottles get recycled at the end of their life.

This last is a very generous assumption, given that global recycling rates for PET bottles are around 25% and far less in many countries. It means that the figures used are very conservative.

A more likely scenario for ‘end of life’ is that the bottles end up either in landfill, burned openly or in an incinerator to “recover energy”, or discarded on land or in water (the bottles pictured, left, were collected at a single Trash Hero beach cleanup in Koh Lanta, Thailand).

However, it was decided not to include these options in the calculation. The range of factors that determine any waste management scenario is very wide and much depends on the local context. Singling out any one could lead to the relevancy of the data being questioned. Instead, plastic bottles are given the fairest possible chance, with some material always being recovered.

The researcher has however confirmed that taking into consideration the more likely end-of-life alternatives would always lead to an increase in the calculated carbon footprint of plastic bottles. This is in addition to the negative health impacts caused by disposal and incineration, both of which release toxic chemicals (in the form of ash, fumes or microplastics) into the atmosphere and food chain.

Crunching the numbers
Working with the above assumptions, and rounding to the nearest gram, the study found that a single use plastic water bottle creates approximately 56g of CO₂ emissions during its short life.

Meanwhile, the Trash Hero bottle and a reusable container used to dispense drinking water together release about 909g of CO₂. But of course these bottles can be – and are – reused. Refilling a Trash Hero bottle generates only 2g of CO₂ emissions – around 28 times less than drinking from single-use plastic.

Using these numbers, we can say that after only 17 refills, the Trash Hero bottle starts to have a positive effect:

➤ 1 Trash Hero bottle + 17 refills creates: (909g) + (17 x 2g) = 943g CO₂ emissions in total
➤ 17 single-use plastic bottles create: 56g x 17 = 952g CO₂ emissions in total

So when you switch to a Trash Hero bottle and refill it 17 times, the greenhouse gas footprint is already less than that of the 17 single-use plastic bottles of drinking water you would have used instead. Any further refills result in a “saving” of CO₂ as more plastic bottles are avoided.

This net saving is equal to 56g – 2g = 54g of CO₂ every time you choose to refill rather than purchase a plastic bottle of water.

Over one year, if you refill once per day and avoid buying any plastic bottles of water, you will have reduced your CO₂ footprint by just over 19kg!

Of course, this is actually a very small percentage of your overall annual carbon footprint – try not to drive to the refill point or order a steak with your water! – but as a direct comparison between packaging systems, the Trash Hero reusable option reduces your impact by around 95% vs. single-use plastic.

The conclusion
This is the first climate impact study done on the Trash Hero bottle and our refill programme. In the particular case considered, at a hotel in Thailand supplying drinking water to its guests, the reusable delivery system had a significantly lower rate of carbon dioxide emissions (95% less) than single-use plastic bottles, with sustained use (more than 17 refills).

In terms of the overall carbon footprint of an individual, the impact of switching to reusable bottles from single-use is likely to be very low, especially factoring in other activities such as transport or diet. However in the context of packaging and delivery systems, the climate positive impact of using the Trash Hero bottle is clear. At scale, small changes such as this can become important. A report in Science Daily in 2019 notes that “emissions from plastics will reach 17% of the global carbon budget by 2050.”

We also know that switching to the Trash Hero bottle reduces plastic waste and saves you money by avoiding bottled water. So we can say for our bottle, these are the new 3 Rs:

REDUCE plastic waste
REDUCE climate impact
REDUCE costs

To work out exactly how much you could reduce, or already have, we have created two bottle impact calculators, linked to this study. The first is for individuals and the second is for hotels to work out the savings made by replacing plastic water bottles in their rooms with the reusable Trash Hero bottles. Give them a try: you may be surprised at the results!

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René Mettler’s Master Thesis was jointly supervised by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zürich) and the sustainability solutions provider, South Pole. It analysed the cost efficiency of waste management and reusable packaging projects. One of these projects was the Trash Hero bottle programme, as implemented in a hotel in southern Thailand. The results showed that the bottle programme does not only lead to environmental benefits such as avoided plastic waste and CO2 emissions, it also saves costs. Our thanks to volunteer Caroline Schweisgut-Heimgartner for her help with interpreting the data.

New resource library for volunteers

by Seema on 20/11/2020 No comments

As Trash Heroes, our regular cleanups make us very visible in the community. Our volunteers often find themselves invited to meetings, panel discussions or talks about waste management. Trash Hero World is committed to ensuring they are armed with the best possible knowledge about the plastic crisis and how to solve it. In this way, they become more able to influence both their local community and decision-makers.

To this end, we have:

started a series of “Zero Waste Communities” workshops in Southeast Asia (more about these will be published in a separate post),
updated our Chapter Handbook (a training guide for all volunteers) to include a simple overview and assessment of some commonly proposed “solutions” to plastic pollution,
created a free, multilingual resource library on our website to gather information on the various topics and debates surrounding the issues and
started to translate some of the existing materials into local languages to allow them to be spread more widely

Our first set of materials, a factsheet on chemical recycling, produced by the experts at GAIA, has just been published in Indonesian, Malaysian, Thai, Arabic and Czech language.

Indonesian PDF –> Daur Ulang Kimiawi
Malaysian PDF –> Kitar semula kimia
Thai PDF –> คําถามและคำตอบเกี่ยวกับการรีไซเคิลทางเคมี
Czech PDF –> Chemical Recycling (Čeština)
Arabic PDF –> أسئلة و أجوبة: إعادة التدوير كيميائياً

Chemical recycling was chosen as it is a “hot topic” and one that is frequently misrepresented. Information about such new technologies is often only available in English, making them difficult to understand and refute in the low and middle income countries where we are active – and where they are aggressively marketed.

This factsheet explains in simple terms why chemical recycling is not a silver bullet solution to plastic pollution as is claimed. In a society that urgently needs to transition from a linear, fossil fuel economy to a circular one, chemical recycling is a distraction at best. It suggests to focus resources on solutions that actually work, particularly those that stop the problem at the source.

Our goal is to do more of this translation and education work. We believe it is a valuable tool to counter industry misinformation at the grassroots and beyond.

Trash Hero takes part in research project to discover “world’s top polluters”

by Seema on 03/10/2020 No comments

As Trash Heroes, we know a community cleanup is one of the most effective ways to help people understand the impact of plastic pollution and create the positive energy needed for change. But we also know cleanups on their own are not a long term solution to the problem of plastic waste. For that, we need to go to the source.

That’s why Trash Hero has joined forces with Break Free From Plastic (BFFP) again this year for a mass data collection project focusing on “brand audits”.

Brand Audits September 2020 in Baubau, Indonesia and Basel, Switzerland.

A “brand audit” is a detailed log of the plastic found during a regular cleanup. It records the date; location; type of material and the number of layers in each piece; and then the name of the producer, if it’s still visible. The data is collected in a systematic way and – for this project – from a wide range of locations on a global scale, involving many different NGOs and volunteers.

BFFP, as the coordinator of the project, will then compile and interpret the collected data for their annual Brand Audit Report (results of the 2019 report here). The results serve as evidence of the scale and provenance of consumer-goods-related pollution. They enable BFFP to push the biggest manufacturers of this plastic waste to change the way they make and deliver their products.

This year’s report is due out in early December. Trash Hero World has committed to make the findings available in Indonesian, Thai and Malaysian to amplify the media coverage in Southeast Asia.

Brand Audits September 2020 in Nagekeo, Indonesia and Tuaran, Malaysia

To broaden the dataset, Trash Hero World and BFFP provided brand audit training for Trash Hero volunteers in several different countries in August and September. It was a new experience for most of them: gathering and recording the information is a fairly labour-intensive process, but one that proved to be both eye-opening and fun. In the lead up to the official data collection period, Trash Hero Canggu in Indonesia collected 140 unrecyclable tubes of toothpaste from a single brand (Pepsodent, by Unilever) in just one hour!

The data collection period lasted six weeks, coming to an end on 30 September 2020. Although the results are still coming in, our estimates show that around 80 brand audits were carried out by Trash Hero volunteers in around 60 locations in the northern, southern, eastern and western hemispheres.

This is more than four times the number of brand audits we submitted as an organisation last year and should in the end make up around one-sixth of the total brand audits contributed to the project globally this year (final numbers TBC). We are very proud of our citizen scientists, many of whom were working under challenging conditions due to COVID-19. We will publish the outcomes of the whole project in a future post.

Brand Audits September 2020 in Koh Samed, Thailand and Saba, Bali

The Trash Hero chapters that carried out a brand audit for this project include:

INDONESIA
Trash Hero Ambon, Trash Hero Amed, Trash Hero Belu, Trash Hero Baubau, Trash Hero Blahbatuh, Trash Hero Bandung, Trash Hero Bunaken, Trash Hero Batubulan, Trash Hero Bogor, Trash Hero Canggu, Trash Hero Candidasa, Trash Hero Depok, Trash Hero Ende, Trash Hero Jimbaran, Trash Hero Kelimutu, Trash Hero Kendari, Trash Hero Kertalangu, Trash Hero Komodo, Trash Hero Kupang, Trash Hero Lembata, Trash Hero Larantuka, Trash Hero Lovina, Trash Hero Mamuju, Trash Hero Muba, Trash Hero Nagekeo, Trash Hero Pemuteran, Trash Hero Payangan, Trash Hero Raja Ampat, Trash Hero Saba, Trash Hero Sanur, Trash Hero Tanjung

MALAYSIA
Trash Hero Banting, Trash Hero Cherating, Trash Hero Ipoh, Trash Hero Johor Bahru, Trash Hero Papar, Trash Hero Perlis, Trash Hero Langkawi, Trash Hero Sintok, Trash Hero Temerloh, Trash Hero Tuaran

NETHERLANDS
Trash Hero Amsterdam

ROMANIA
Trash Hero Vatra Dornei

SERBIA
Trash Hero Beograd

SWITZERLAND
Trash Hero Basel, Trash Hero Bern, Trash Hero Fribourg, Trash Hero Luzern, Trash Hero Solothurn, Trash Hero Winterthur

THAILAND
Trash Hero Bangkok, Trash Hero Pattaya, Trash Hero Koh Phi Phi, Trash Hero Hua Hin, Trash Hero Chumphon, Trash Hero Koh Jum, Trash Hero Koh Samed, Trash Hero Koh Samui

UK
Trash Hero UK (London and Newcastle)

Creating change in a time of crisis

by Seema on 04/05/2020 1 comment

A message from the Trash Hero co-founder, Roman Peter:

As the scale and severity of the Covid-19 pandemic became clear in early March, our immediate priority was to make sure our hundreds of volunteers and communities were safe. Our network is global and then – as now – every country was responding differently to the threat of the virus. On 13 March, we issued simple guidelines and a risk assessment tool to all chapters to help them to decide whether to carry on activities and how to proceed in a safe manner if they did.

We were also proactive in putting on hold all travel arrangements and accommodation bookings for our Southeast Asian family meetings that were due to be held in April – our biggest and costliest events of the year. These precautions meant that when we eventually made the decision to cancel, we did not lose a single dollar of your donated funds.

During the lockdown period, we have not been able to carry on “business as usual.” All programmes have been temporarily suspended, in line with government restrictions. Instead, we have focused on supporting our volunteers with frequent communication and interaction: keeping our network engaged will be key to getting up and running again quickly once it is safe to do so.

As an already lean organisation we have been able to contain the immediate impact on our finances. We took further steps to minimise our costs; reprioritise and redistribute work; and harness additional volunteer power through our existing networks. In this way, we have been able to retain all of our current staff. Below we go into some of these measures in more detail.

Together with the reserves we started to build in 2018, and the unfaltering commitments of foundations and individuals for the current year, we are confident that we will weather this storm.
However the long term financial future remains uncertain. More than ever we rely on your support to continue with our work.

ACTIVITIES

All community-based activities (Action & Awareness, Trash Hero Kids’ programme) stopped from late March; the bottle programme also effectively shut down as refill point businesses closed.
We have been creating new content to encourage waste reduction activities that can be done solo or at home, for example this Trash Hero Kids video:

We have been keeping people up to date with the latest information about corona and reusables, and issues around medical waste
We are currently organising online workshops / leaders’ academy / family meetings and taking this opportunity to include chapters in countries who previously had not been able to join
As restrictions ease in different countries, a few cleanups are restarting, in compliance with local safety regulations
Many volunteers have been hit hard personally by the crisis, especially those in Southeast Asia, where tourist income has disappeared overnight and there is little to no government support. It is possible we lose some chapters as a result. We are however doing everything possible (aside from providing financial aid) to ensure morale is kept up and to remind everyone they will always be part of the “Trash Hero Family.”

From left / top: Trash Hero Tachov motivated people to do solo cleanups with #oneplaceonehero; Trash Hero Adelaide organised “group” cleanups with everyone going out separately; Trash Hero Tumapel did home schooling with the Trash Hero Kids book

FINANCES

Careful planning ensured no existing funds were lost due to the pandemic
Individual / spontaneous donations have almost completely dried up since March
We expect earned income from events, partnerships etc. to be significantly impacted
The majority of our major donors are honouring their commitments for 2020, for which we are very grateful
We are equally grateful for any flexibility from grant-makers on obligations and timelines
We currently have funds to cover 7 months of operation and we have a further 4 months’ funds held in our reserves.
Salaries across the network (4 full time positions) are covered until November this year
There is no doubt we will be ready to start activities as soon as we are able. But reserves will be depleted so funds are needed to make up the loss
Our existing budget and targets for this year will be revised down by an estimated 50%. We cannot yet provide a final calculation as the situation is still changing. However as growth and spending decrease concurrently, we expect our impact per dollar to remain roughly the same.

MANAGEMENT

We provided guidance to all volunteers within 48 hours of the pandemic being declared in March
Our global teams were already remote working, so no time or resources were lost in adapting to “work from home”
With reduced daily business, we have been able to carry out much needed consolidation of programmes and infrastructure
This has created a lot of new work focused on long term capacity building. Our staff have been flexible and adapted quickly to the new routines
Our core volunteer network has been affected in different ways: some people have needed a break to focus on their personal situation, while others have been able to offer more time as they are staying at home. Overall, we have continued to cover significant translation and administrative tasks with pro bono contributions.

From left / top: Reduce food waste with Trash Hero World; stay home with Trash Hero Indonesia; learn how to upcycle with Trash Hero Kuwait

COMMUNICATION

Since the start of the crisis, we have stayed in constant communication with our volunteer network
We continue to post on social media and have issued guidelines for chapters to do the same
We monitor our social media network (200+ accounts) for misinformation or inappropriate posting about the virus, as well as for positive and creative posts to share
We have built a Southeast Asia operations team to facilitate two way communication
We have made good progress on our volunteer intranet

As the economic climate becomes more challenging over the coming months, Trash Hero will be needed more than ever to keep the focus on plastic reduction at the grassroots. We have already seen the plastic industry start to capitalise on people’s fears over hygiene, by pushing for more single use products and packaging, or trying to overturn plastic bans in various locations around the world.

It is important that the impact of our work thus far is not lost in this hiatus. Our communities are depending on us – and you – to continue our activities. And, despite the uncertainty, there are great opportunities for change offered by this crisis. As life begins again, we can help shape the “new normal” to reflect our shared vision of a world without waste. The Trash Hero hope and spirit is still strong and, with your ongoing support, we can continue to make a difference.

Trash Hero issues Coronavirus advice to all chapters

by Seema on 13/03/2020 1 comment

Trash Hero’s activities are based on bringing communities together in collective action. Normally this is a great thing! However we are very mindful of the risk of continuing “business as usual” in the light of the current Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak.

Like most people, we have been monitoring developments and gathering as much information as possible to work out how best to protect our volunteers and our communities. We recognise that our duty and responsibility to help contain the spread of the virus takes precedence over our standing commitment to provide weekly cleanups.

We have issued high level guidance for all chapters, that tries to take into account the very different and rapidly changing contexts across the globe. This includes a risk assessment tool and recommended additional safety procedures in cases where cleanups will go ahead. The guidelines will be published on all channels and translated into local languages where necessary.

If you are thinking of joining any Trash Hero event in the coming weeks, we urge you to contact your local chapter directly to find out if and how they are proceeding. If in any doubt, or you are a person in a “high risk” category”, it would be best to stay away from public gatherings for now.

If you’re missing the action and if safe to do so, you can always do a solo cleanup. Send a selfie to your local chapter, who will be happy to share and celebrate your acheivements. Or, use your time to help in your community in other ways if you can. Together – safely – we can still make a difference.

Almost 200 volunteers join Trash Hero Family Meetings

by Seema on 11/12/2019 No comments

Trash Hero’s greatest strength is its people. Our volunteers bring the energy, hard work and commitment that our weekly programmes demand. More, they live our values, spreading the message of reducing waste to their families, friends and work colleagues.

Twice a year, we gather these community leaders together in national “family meetings”, hosted by Trash Hero World. The three-day events are held in key countries in Southeast Asia and Europe, where we have a concentration of active chapters. Volunteers are invited to attend, free of charge, to receive training and education, as well as exchange knowledge and ideas with others in their country.

At the recent round of meetings in Oct – Nov 2019, we were able to train 197 volunteers from 95 different chapters. The breakdown by country can be seen below:

Trash Hero Myanmar | 4 – 6 October 2019 in Ngapali

Volunteers trained: 13
Chapters: 7
Many thanks to our sponsors:
– Yoma Cherry Lodge & Mummy Sue: food and tea breaks
– Vera Thomson English School: free meeting room

Trash Hero Indonesia | 11 – 13 October 2019 in Bali

Volunteers trained: 80
Chapters: 40
Many thanks to our sponsors:
– Baliwoso: discounted accommodation
– Paguyuban Saba Driver: discounted transportation
– I Nyoman Parta (Member of People’s Representative Council of Indonesian Republic – Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat Republik Indonesia)

Trash Hero Thailand | 19 – 21 October in Bangkok

Volunteers trained: 60
Chapters: 22
Many thanks to our sponsor:
– Ban Nam Pheung Homestay: free meeting room

Trash Hero Malaysia | 25 – 27 October in Mersing

Volunteers trained: 26
Chapters: 17
Many thanks to our sponsors:
– Mohd Faisial Abdul Rani & family: free accommodation / 2 houses
– Majlis Daerah Mersing (Mersing District Council): free meeting room and food
– Sustainable Business Network Association, Malaysia: 2000 MYR cash donation used for other food and transportation costs.

Trash Hero Czech Republic | 8 – 10 November in Prague

Volunteers trained: 18
Chapters: 9
Many thanks to our sponsor:
– Kavárna co hledá jméno : free meeting room

Special mention to Reisebüro Feriezyt, who regularly provide discounted travel for Trash Hero World.

We would also like to thank our volunteers who planned and organised each event; the speakers and workshop leaders who also gave their time for free; and our supporters, whose donations enable us to hold these important meetings twice a year. The total cost for all meetings came to US$27,700, or around US$140 per participant.

Together with these ~200 volunteers who joined (some on their days of annual leave), we were able to strengthen our community base, reinforce quality standards and empower new leaders for the expanding Trash Hero movement around the globe.

World’s Top Polluters Revealed by Break Free from Plastic’s 2019 Brand Audit

by Leslie Finlay on 24/10/2019 No comments

This week, Break Free From Plastic (BFFP) released their second global brand audit, Branded Vol. II: Identifying the World’s Top Corporate Plastic Polluters.

On 2019’s World Clean Up Day held September 21, more than 72 thousand volunteers from 51 countries around the world collected 476,423 pieces of plastic from coastlines, riversides, and within their communities – 43% of which were marked with a clear consumer brand.

In 2019, BFFP had over seven times as many volunteers contribute to this brand audit as it did in 2018, recording twice the amount of single-use plastic.

The Top 3 Global Polluters are the same as those from 2018: Coca Cola, Nestlé, and Pepsico.

The other seven companies the brand audit identified as top plastic polluters include: Mondelez International, Unilever, Mars, Procter & Gamble, Colgate-Palmolive, Philips Morris International, and Perfetti van Melle.

World Cleanup Day volunteers recorded the branded waste collected as they cleaned their communities, submitting a combined 484 audits to Break Free From Plastic. The Trash Heroes of Indonesia were even awarded a silver medal in recognition of their 7,520 volunteers!

The volunteers in Ambon, Indonesia were hit with a 6.5-magnitude earthquake and evacuated from their homes – and yet still retrieved their brand audits to submit their data to BFFP, a true, inspiring commitment to these heroes fighting to improve their communities and move toward a waste-free future.

Such brand audits are a powerful tool for holding consumer goods companies accountable for their role in the global plastic waste problem, revealing just how widespread and damaging their throwaway plastic business model has become.

“There is a great need to better understand the sources and priority products that contribute to plastic pollution closer to the source, so we can better intervene on solutions,” the BFFP report says.

For the second year in a row, Coca Cola came is as the #1 global polluter. In just one day, an incredible 11,732 branded Coca Cola plastics were collected and recorded – more than the next three top global polluters combined. In the past, Coca Cola has attempted to address its role in the plastic pollution crisis by promoting plastic packaging using plastic collected from the ocean, or using plastic bottles made from plants, or bioplastics. But these “solutions” merely reinforce the myth that single-use plastic can be sustainable.

According to the report, the #2 polluter, Nestlé, has announced its commitment to making all of its packaging recyclable or reusable by 2025 – but with no clear plan for reducing the total amount of single-use plastics it produces. The company sells over a billion products a day in single-use plastic. In spite of these claims, on the shores of Lake Geneva, home to Nestlé’s global headquarters, Greenpeace Switzerland volunteers collected 1,124 plastic items in just two hours on World Cleanup Day.

Unilever, the #5 plastic polluter, has promised to reduce its role as a plastic polluter by using chemical recycling, according to BFFP’s report. This technology, however, is unproven, extremely energy intensive, and its adoption on a large scale is completely unfeasible.

These pivots and marketed alternatives made by global brands are ignoring the primary issue – we need to reduce our dependence on plastic altogether, and that starts at the source with these primary producers.

Overall, the most common types of plastics collected throughout the audit included:

PET plastics – clear or tinted plastic often used in drink bottles, cups, and pouches
HDEP plastics – white or coloured plastic
PVC plastics – hard or rubbery plastic used in building materials, toys, and shower curtains

We can make more sustainable choices as individuals, but the consumer is not fully responsible.

For years, the corporate narrative has been that plastic pollution is a problem caused by individual consumers. False solutions like recycling, incineration, and bioplastics are rampantly promoted, but fail to address the real problem – constant, large scale production.

The report addresses that in many cases, across many communities, it’s simply impossible to avoid plastic in our everyday lives. The responsibility simply cannot fall entirely on individual consumer choices. We have a powerful global plastics industry that plans to quadruple plastic production by 2050, meaning the environmental, social justice, and health threats associated with such high levels of plastic waste will increase dramatically.

“Plastic is not a litter problem, it is a pollution problem, and it starts as soon as the plastic is made,” the BFFP report states. “Faced with no choice but plastic packaging, people are forced to be complicit in the plastic pollution crisis.”

In the report, Break Free from Plastic also discussed zero-waste and policy solutions designed to address this systemic plastic production problem.

Highlights include examples of cities and organisations using surveys, audits, and citizen science methods to understand their local waste problem and demand that suppliers of plastic products take accountability for their role in unsustainable waste – as well as governments that set the policies to regulate these companies

Inspiring examples of community-led change from the audit include:

Tacloban City, a highly urbanised area in central Philippines, is well on its way to becoming a Zero Waste model city. In partnership with the Filipino non-profit organisation the Mother Earth Foundation, the city launched intensive house-to-house information, education, and communication campaigns about waste management and separation.
The 5 Gyres Institute in North America conducted scientific expeditions to study the global estimate of microplastics in the world’s oceans. The findings contributed to the eventual banning of plastic microbeads in America through the Microbeads Free Waters Act.
In Guatemala, a university student worked with local organisations to pressure the local government to rethink its policies toward single use plastic. Later that year, the Mayor placed a ban on the sale and use of straws, plastic bags, and polystyrene products. The municipality then ran campaigns to promote the use of traditional packaging like maxan leaves, sugarcane baskets, and reusable dishware and utensils, providing items throughout the community and its businesses.

Examples like these, and many others included in the full report, highlight how no matter where in the world you live, community power – and creating a culture of accountability – can lead to powerful, lasting change toward a plastic waste-free future.

Check out the full report and brand audit from Break Free From Plastic to learn more.

Are Bioplastics a Safe Alternative? New Study Says No.

by Leslie Finlay on 05/10/2019 1 comment

Plastic is everywhere in modern life. Its purpose is practical – it’s durable, lightweight, and versatile across its millions of uses. But until recently, little has been studied about the impact of our constant, everyday exposure to the chemicals that make up plastic items, and experts are worried about potential long-term health effects that can result from our societal addiction to plastic.

Last month, a landmark study was published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology that detailed the harmful chemical content found across a wide range of everyday plastic items. Surprisingly, the study also found that bioplastics, marketed as a sustainable, yet familiar alternative, may pose just as much – if not more – of a health risk as its petroleum-based counterpart.

The Human Health Risk of Plastic

The aim of this study was to inform consumers about the safest types of plastic to use. But according to the research team, the results were more complicated than expected. Instead of being able to soundly point consumers in the safest direction, they found that issues of toxicity were widespread across nearly every type and brand of plastic.

The researchers studied commonly used plastic items from water bottles to food wrappers and yogurt cups, and found evidence that most of these popular consumer products do contain chemicals that can be harmful to human health. Some of these chemicals, like phthalates and BPA, have never been studied extensively in spite of their widespread use, but are thought to be what are known as endocrine disruptors, linked with a long list of reproductive, developmental, and other health issues.

What are Bioplastics and are they Safe?

Given the growing concern for environmental sustainability together with the longstanding uncertainty in the safety of plastic, bioplastics have emerged as a potential alternative. This material refers to any plastic made from plants instead of petroleum. It’s cheap to produce and argued as more sustainable alternative. Bioplastics reportedly biodegrade more easily, and produce up to 70 percent less greenhouse gases as they break down. Some bioplastic products claim to break down in a matter of weeks, and since they’re made from biological material, the argument is that as they decay they blend harmlessly into the environment.

But that isn’t the whole story. The study found that all bioplastics made of polylactic acid (PLA) – the most common type by far – showed toxicity levels similar to that of PVC, which is known to be the most highly toxic type of plastic available. The authors of the study said that the bioplastic solution, often touted as a “magic bullet” alternative by manufacturers, should be approached with caution to avoid adopting it as a “regrettable substitution.”

Are Bioplastics Really More Sustainable?

Even without these potential health risks linked to chemicals in bioplastics, the product doesn’t live up to its sustainable hype. While marketed as “green,” “eco-friendly,” and “biodegradable,” bioplastics may cause just as much – if not more – environmental damage than its standard plastic counterpart.

First, not all bioplastics readily break down as claimed. It’s been well documented that standard plastic will never fully degrade, but over time breaks down into microscopic plastic particles that can be damaging to the environment, animals and marine life, and human health. The idea is that bioplastics, since they are made from biological material, will harmlessly biodegrade. But this solution is misleading. Bioplastics can still take many decades to decompose, and a report by the 5 Gyres Institute found that most kinds of bioplastics won’t just do so in the natural environment, but require industrial-level composting. The consistent infrastructure for this just doesn’t exist – and where it does, the study finds that facilities simply won’t accept bioplastics as they delay processes.

The promise of recylcling falls short of reality as well. Technology does exist to recycle some forms of bioplastics, but almost no facilities currently exist. Bioplastics must be processed separately from standard plastic, resulting in expensive processes that aren’t feasible for most cities, and increased levels of local industrial emissions. As a result, bioplastics more often end up in landfills where they may release methane gas – a greenhouse gas 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide.

Even if these facilities become widely available, there is the human element to recycling that has been repeatedly documented as inefficient. Experts report that less than one-fifth of recyclable material ever makes it to the right processing facility.

Secondly, bioplastics are made from plants like corn. The concept of “growing our plastic” takes land away from food production, results in greenhouse gas emissions from intensive agriculture, and can lead to water pollution from fertilizer runoff. Experts say that these indirect impacts can be even more harmful than if we just kept producing plastic from petroleum.

Reduction is the Answer

The idea of all-natural, compostable plastic sounds exciting, and the interest in products like bioplastic is an encouraging reminder that as a society we do want to make more sustainable choices in our everyday lives. But given the uncertainty of health risks and environmental consequences, reducing our reliance on plastic altogether shows the greatest promise for a waste-free future.

Engineering an alternative may one day succeed, but reduction is power we all have control of today. Small changes in our everyday lives can help eliminate its production altogether. Consider habits like:

Eat fresh food – this reduces the likelihood your food has come into contact with potentially toxic chemicals, and limits the need for plastic packaging.
Opt for stainless steel, glass, or ceramic food containers.
Swap out single-use plastic items like water bottles, plastic bags, and toiletry items for sustainable alternatives.
Support local businesses that have a smaller supply chain footprint.
When possible, repair instead of re-buy.
Be an active advocate for change by joining local cleanups.

Trash Heroes Gearing Up for Sept. 21st’s World Cleanup Day!

by Leslie Finlay on 19/09/2019 No comments

All across the world Trash Heroes are getting ready to join the massive international cleanup effort this Saturday, September 21.

World Cleanup Day began in 2008 when 50,000 people united in Estonia to clean the country in 5 hours. Today, this effort has expanded, bringing together millions of people across 157 countries to address our shared problem of global waste by harnessing the impressive power of collective action.

This vision is led by Let’s Do It World, an organisation that believes in a spirit of unity to address the issues that come with unsustainable waste. We couldn’t agree more with this tenet at Trash Hero. Through collaboration and positivity, we can look beyond differences and come together under what unites us all – our planet, and the fight for its bright future.

These cleanups involve a rigorous data collection element, as do many Trash Hero cleanups, to provide ongoing analysis into the greatest challenges faced in reducing marine and coastal litter.

By recording what we collect, we can see over time the items that are most frequently wasted – motivating us to make everyday swaps to reusable, sustainable items like canvas bags and stainless steel water bottles and straws.

It’s been reported that up to 80% of environmental impact is generated by everyday household consumption, meaning its reduction – and the movement toward a waste-free future – is very much in our control!

To get involved, check for events organised by your local Trash Hero chapter, World Cleanup Day teams, or other organisations in your area. Or grab some friends and go! There’s no limit on how to make a positive change to your local area.

But don’t lose motivation after September 21st! Global waste is a growing issue, but it’s one that we can tackle together through collective, ongoing action and awareness.

Consider what reusable swaps you can make in your everyday life to reduce your personal plastic consumption. And help reduce the risk of plastic ending up in the marine environment – where it can be near impossible to recover – by disposing of it responsibly, and collecting it if you see it out in your local environment! The action of one individual may seem insignificant, but multiply that by the thousands of Trash Heroes of all ages across the world – and that impact turns into real, systemic change.

Putting volunteers first

by Seema on 26/06/2019 1 comment

The latest round of Trash Hero Family Meetings drew to a close this week in Zurich, Switzerland. The city was one of two new European locations that hosted our regular team-building, training and networking event for volunteers – the other being in Prague, Czech Republic, earlier this month.

The new additions reflect the rapid growth of Trash Hero within Europe: there are now active chapters not only in Switzerland and the Czech Republic, but also in Serbia and Romania.

Trash Hero Switzerland Family Meeting in Zurich, June 2019

However, the season kicked off in April, back in Southeast Asia where the Trash Hero movement began. Trash Hero Malaysia and Singapore volunteers gathered in Kota Kinabalu from 25 – 27 April, followed by Trash Hero Indonesia teams on 2 – 4 May in Bali. Our Thai chapter leaders met in Khao Lak from 10 – 12 May, while Trash Hero Myanmar hosted their volunteers in Yangon, from 15 – 17 May.

The family meetings have become key engagements in our organisation’s calendar: as a diverse and dispersed network, they provide us with the vital time and space for immersive, face to face communication that helps to equip and motivate volunteers for the coming months. They are normally held twice a year: in April – May and October – November.

Trash Hero Indonesia volunteers clean up with a local school at their family meeting in Bali, May 2019

This time, alongside our usual activities, our chapter leaders learned how to carry out “brand audits” during their cleanups, recording the volume of the plastic packaging we regularly pick up, as well as the companies who manufacture it. The data collected over the coming year will be provided to our partner organisations, who can use it to push for systemic change in the production and disposal of single use plastic.

Members of the Break Free From Plastic coalition, who are driving corporate campaigns and global policy change, kindly joined us in Thailand to help with this important training, as we increasingly focus on connecting our communities’ experience of plastic pollution to the bigger picture.

The Break Free From Plastic team helped to train our Thai volunteers in Khao Lak, May 2019

Below are some video highlights from the recent events in Southeast Asia and Czech Republic, created entirely by the volunteers who attended them.

[Czech language only]

In total, 213 chapter leaders from 93 locations were able to join this series of family meetings – more than 90% of our global network. The total cost for all six meetings (the majority of which last 2 – 3 full days) was under $29,500, or around $138 per volunteer. This includes travel, accommodation and food for all participants, including the Trash Hero World team and external speakers. We are very grateful for the many hours of work donated in kind, as well as the monetary donations, that allow us to organise these events and continue investing in our volunteers and the amazing work they are doing around the world.