Chipolte has a bit of a history with food poisoning, but the newest controversy isn’t
with their food handling practices.
Chipolte and many other fast-casual restaurants are using molded fiber
bowls that contain some less than healthy components. These bowls are advertised as compostable, but they contain chemicals that may never break down.
According to experts consulted for this story, all molded fiber bowls contain PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, a broad class of more than 4,000 fluorinated compounds that do not biodegrade naturally in the environment. This means that the bowls used at restaurants like Chipotle and Sweetgreen aren’t truly compostable, as has been claimed. Instead, they are likely making compost more toxic, adding to the chemical load of the very soil and water they were supposed to help improve. And rather than degrade quickly, they contain potentially hazardous ingredients that never break down. Not in five years, and not in 500.
The public health implications of this finding are not yet clear. The very worst PFAS chemicals are linked to a range of serious health outcomes, from colitis and thyroid disorders to kidney and testicular cancers, and have been mostly phased out of production in the U.S. These bowls are more likely to contain newer varieties that are just as persistent in the environment and are of grave concern to scientists, but have not been studied as closely for potential health effects.
The discovery that fiber bowls contain PFAS, which has not been reported until now, is especially surprising given that many restaurants have explicitly marketed them as compostable. Sweetgreen, for instance, uses prominent signage to inform its customers that its bowls “are plant-based, which means they go in the compost bin, along with any leftover food.” In an indicative recent tweet, Sweetgreen told a curious customer that all of its take-out containers are “100% compostable!”
Bigger Isn't Better
 |
Carolyn
Kaster/AP
Over the second
half of the 20th Century Americans became addicted to the concept of
convenience. Everything had to be easy
to buy, consume and be easily disposed. Industries came into being to create and expand that concept and to cater to their creation.
The story of soda pop is even more extreme, with 7-Eleven leading the way again. According to Annabelle Smith in the Smithsonian, it introduced the Big Gulp in 1976 at the suggestion of Coca-Cola reps. It started in Orange County as a test because a dubious product manager, Dennis Potts, thought it was "too damn big."
That led to the Super Big Gulp at 46 ounces, the self-serve dispenser to off-load labor costs to the customers, and eventually a 64 ounce Double Gulp that Ellen DeGeneres said would keep you going for “six weeks in the desert.”
Of course, this has contributed to the obesity crisis and the waste management crisis, but it is all oh so convenient, to have people buy giant cups, fill them themselves, and then just throw them away.
Readers will no doubt comment again that the companies are just giving people what they want, but it doesn't work that way. They price the drinks to encourage larger sizes by making it so much cheaper per ounce in larger volumes, but really, who in their right mind and body can drink 64 ounces of pop? If it was packed in refillable glass bottles, you probably couldn't lift the thing to your mouth.
And so the convenience Industrial Complex wins again. They offload their real estate costs to your car, their waste management to the taxpayer who picks up the garbage, and make ever greater profits from the ever greater sizes.
When Will the Dam Burst?
Recycling is as old as thrift. The Japanese were recycling paper in the 11th century; medieval blacksmiths made armour from scrap metal. During the second world war, scrap metal was made into tanks and women’s nylons into parachutes. “The trouble started when, in the late 70s, we began trying to recycle household waste,” says Geyer. This was contaminated with all sorts of undesirables: non-recyclable materials, food waste, oils and liquids that rot and spoil the bales.
At the same time, the packaging industry flooded our homes with cheap plastic: tubs, films, bottles, individually shrink-wrapped vegetables. Plastic is where recycling gets most controversial. Recycling aluminium, say, is straightforward, profitable and environmentally sound: making a can from recycled aluminium reduces its carbon footprint by up to 95%. But with plastic, it is not that simple. While virtually all plastics can be recycled, many aren’t because the process is expensive, complicated and the resulting product is of lower quality than what you put in. The carbon-reduction benefits are also less clear. “You ship it around, then you have to wash it, then you have to chop it up, then you have to re-melt it, so the collection and recycling itself has its own environmental impact,” says Geyer.
Beyond
recycling, people will need to add some inconvenience to their lives by
focusing on reuse instead of recycle.
Perhaps there is an alternative. Since Blue Planet II brought the plastic crisis to our attention, a dying trade is having a resurgence in Britain: the milkman. More of us are choosing to have milk bottles delivered, collected and re-used. Similar models are springing up: zero-waste shops that require you to bring your own containers; the boom in refillable cups and bottles. It is as if we have remembered that the old environmental slogan “Reduce, re-use, recycle” wasn’t only catchy, but listed in order of preference.
Ban the Ban
One response
to the wave of single use plastics is to ban them. The plastics industry has been aggressive at
fighting those bans often working at the state level to make it legally
impossible for cities to ban single use plastics. Seventeen states currently make it illegal for municipalities to restrict the use of use plastics in their communities.
California, New York, and hundreds of municipalities in the U.S. ban or fine the use of plastic in some way. Seventeen other states, however, say it’s illegal to ban plastic items, effectively placing a ban on a ban. This kind of legal maneuvering is booming. Four states created preemptions this year alone with two only narrowly failing in South Carolina and Alabama.
Often, efforts to preempt plastic bans are aided by the plastics industry, which wants to ensure its products remain widely used.
"First and foremost, we represent the manufacturers of plastic retail bags,” says Matt Seaholm, executive director of the American Progressive Bag Alliance, a group affiliated with the plastics industry. “We engage at a local level to provide information to local officials on the merits of any type of an ordinance that is being proposed.”
Often partnering with local retail and restaurant associations, the industry is at odds with environmental groups that say single-use plastic must be urgently addressed.
“The plastic industry is putting a lot of their money on preemption, and they’re winning,” says Jennie Romer, an attorney at the Surfrider Foundation, a group that advocates for pro-environment policies.
Eight additional states are considering preemption measures in the coming years that could make it illegal to ban single-use plastics.
What Happens When You Ban the Ban
Usually the consequences of our single use plastic garbage happen out of sight, but not always. Texas is one of the states where it is illegal for cities to enact bans on single use plastics. The plastics industry is quite effective at helping state lawmakers implement those laws.The drive from her ranch to the nearby town of Poth was usually uneventful. But on that day in 2017, West saw something that made her slam on the brakes of her pickup.
A white plastic bag had flitted into a horse pen behind a house where a young palomino was grazing. Someone who doesn't work with livestock probably wouldn't have thought twice about it. But West trained horses, and she knew the colt would treat the bag like a toy.
She quickly pulled into the yard and raced to the front door. A man answered.
“I said, ‘Do you care if I run out to check on your horse?'" West recalled. He said it was fine. "That’s all I said. I ran behind his house just as the horse took off running."
When West got to the pen, the colt had already swallowed the bag, and she could see that he was suffocating. He then bolted, jumping a barbed wire fence. West ran after him. But she was too late.
Last year, the Texas Supreme Court struck down the city of Laredo’s plastic bag ban, effectively ending about a dozen similar policies in other Texas municipalities.
Meanwhile, the absence of municipal regulations means many Texans have reverted to using plastic bags once again. And some say the litter is getting worse.
No comments:
Post a Comment