Delivering the Plastic Pandemic Into a Circular Paradigm
By Justin Lindemann, NCSU Master of International Studies student
The pile up of plastic has been a long-standing environmental issue for quite some time now, with the world producing almost 300 million tons of plastic a year — most of it single use. In the U.S. plastic containers and packaging generation has increased since the 1960s, but to an astounding 120x the number that it was 60 years ago. There are many problems with producing so much plastic, one of them being that most of it isn’t biodegradable and can loiter for many, many years, eventually getting into our waterways, oceans, and the food that we eat. Not to mention that wealthier nations, including the U.S., ship their plastic waste to poorer nations as a way to “recycle”.
Speaking of recycling, some might think the answer to the plastic pandemic is to recycle, recycle, recycle, but many of these “recyclable” products can’t undergo that process. Numerous types of plastics are instead being sent directly to landfills and many products portrayed as recyclable have almost no reusability as a newer product.
This situation rings true especially for any type of plastic container that carries food, like carry out or take-out containers. These containers are oftentimes too dirty or contaminated with food particles that recycling plants would often send them to the landfill. Styrofoam is the biggest offender amongst food containers, and most often sent back or not picked up for recycling at all. However, with the pandemic raging on, restaurants struggling to keep an in person presence inside, and Americans growing tired of cooking, carry out is seen as the best option as food delivery and digital restaurants orders have increased.
With recycling out of the question as an efficient solution for various plastic types, there must be other solutions. That is where Crystal Dreisbach, Executive Director of Don’t Waste Durham and Founder of GreenToGo, comes in. Crystal came up with the idea for GreenToGo after growing increasingly bothered by the amount of styrofoam takeout containers being produced and disposed. With her background in public health research she began to uncover the damaging effects, noticing that it’s production not only damages those that use them, but also those that manufacture them, the local economies that use them, and especially the environment.
Since there was no one really doing anything, at that time, to “change this at a systems level”. Crystal began to write letters to her favorite restaurants, while still working at her other job, as she knew that she could at least do something, “even if a restaurant didn't necessarily read it or even if a restaurant read it and didn't care.” Fortunately, one did write back and considered her suggestion to switch to a more sustainable alternative, and that it was her letter that made the difference. The compostable boxes that they switched to didn’t even hurt them financially.
Maine becomes the first state to ban single-use food and drink containers made from Styrofoam (Polystyrene Foam), May 1st, 2019, Source: 94.7WLS
Realizing the change that she just made, and the possibilities of further progress, she ended up leaving her job in public health research to start working on styrofoam related policy with the Durham Environmental Affairs Board (EAB). Through her work with the Durham EAB, a subcommittee on styrofoam was created, which garnered attention from many Durham residents. “They had all these complaints, and they really had no outlet for it until we started having these meetings”. That is when people encouraged Crystal to start a nonprofit that directly deals with such issues, and in 2013 the environmental non-profit, Don’t Waste Durham, was created. The non-profit then began a Kickstarter campaign in 2015 to raise the startup funds for what is now GreenToGo, and they have since been in business for over three years after.
The way GreenToGo works, is, they restock restaurants with washed and sanitized, durable containers that customers will then return after use to various return stations located around the city of Durham. Where they are collected on bicycles, to be washed and sanitized, and then returned to the restaurants for further use: Thus, creating a circular pattern in the cities carry-out waste production. This strategy is applicable for, “schools, retirement [communities], home stadiums, corporate cafés,” just a few places Crystal mentioned.
Since starting GreenToGo, the impact has been slow rising as they’ve managed to offset approximately a month’s worth of disposables, while Downtown Durham alone produces 10,000 disposable containers a month (pre-COVID). The impact itself isn’t a lot, which Crystal acknowledged, but she goes on to explain that, “the potential we have to offset waste is huge. For example, you're not going to have the volume of usage of an alternative system, like GreenToGo, right away…the immediate impact on waste reduction numbers is not high, but the demonstration of a new supply chain, a new infrastructure, is what is going to change the world.”
They even have the interest of schools, who are approaching them to apply a similar circular strategy, including over 350 cities all over the world who’ve asked, as well as 20 to 25 reuse programs--located all around the world--every month. In terms of what is shared with these interested parties, GreenToGo created a seven module learning platform, containing every tool, lessons learned, best practices, and even virtual office hours for contact purposes.
The Durham-based service will be opening a Triangle-wide wash facility, one that is capable of taking on the region and large corporate accounts, where a larger impact can be made, like “a stadium for sports going entirely reusable in their concession,” which would be around 20,000 containers a day. Crystal views the entire process as a growing one, and as capacity increases, so will impact. The vision for this expansion is a similar structure like in Durham, by having riders collect containers, but with the additional use of an electric vehicle to transport them to the wash facility and using it for redistribution.
As for the current linear economy, she believes that it is linked to everything, from society’s, “relationship with extracting resources, manufacturing things with it, selling those things, and then using them and disposing them.” She sees this as quite an archaic system, and views a circular economy as, “the solution to becoming healthier,” and that you can’t sit and complain about the current system, “the only way you're going to change it is if you show people what's possible and build new systems to show that we can switch, and that's what's going to save us.”
The issue of plastic production and piled up waste is also a matter of equity and environmental justice, and Don’t Waste Durham is trying to help reduce the damages through multiple avenues, not just GreenToGo. Crystal uses the example of the trash-shipping dilemma that Durham County is embroiled in, and details the miles and miles long journey that Durhams trash travels to be sent to Sampson County: “You can look at the socioeconomic demographics and racial makeup. It is a browner community, it is a poorer community, and I feel there are some definite racial injustice issues and environmental justice issues happening… I tell people every time you throw something in the trash that could have been prevented or diverted elsewhere, you are basically dumping that on a poor Black person.” She qualified her last statement by saying that there are poor white people in these hard hit regions as well, but that poor Black and Brown communities often have less wealth than the poorest white communities.
Boomerang Bag Examples Source: Bull City Boomerang Bag (Facebook)
Don’t Waste Durham is currently gearing up for another plastic-reducing initiative, this time it is the plastic bag. The program, called Bull City Boomerang Bags, will create an equitable environment surrounding the use and access to reusable bags. In describing the program, Crystal mentions that the Boomerang Bags will “provide free and equitable access to reusable bags across the city”. The goal is to install opportunities for those that don’t have access to reusable bags to participate in lowering the amount of plastic waste contributed to by these problematic plastic baggage, and, “with creativity, innovation and building a new supply chain, that you can avoid those [plastic bags] and really make the community richer for it.” The Boomerang Bags and GreenToGo programs are just a microcosm of the many projects that Don’t Waste Durham are currently undertaking, all to prevent equity issues related to the environment and, “make it better for people of color and low, low wealth areas because they're disproportionately impacted by trash and waste, and pollution.”
So, the problems with plastic don’t just effect the average turtle or dolphin, they also pose considerable environmental trouble for BIPOC and lower income communities. With ideas like GreenToGo and the force that is Don’t Waste Durham behind many sustainable projects, the future of plastic and waste production has been dealt with a warning to move towards a circular economy, which isn’t too difficult to understand. As Crystal perfectly puts it, “It’s not rocket science, it’s basically washing things. We want to be able to do that for everyone.”
Go to https://durhamgreentogo.com/ to learn all about GreenToGo and how you can participate, and http://www.dontwastedurham.org/ to learn all about Don’t Waste Durham and how you can help create a more sustainable Durham.
