Paper...Plastic? How About Tiffin Instead?

Most U.S. consumers are familiar with the sing-songy question at grocery stores: "Paper or plastic?" In some cities, plastic bags have been banned - and for good reason. But changing to paper isn't necessarily a more ecological choice. Below, I've listed some information about both paper and plastic that may surprise you. Understanding the challenges might also help you take another step toward going green.

Since plastic and paper are so handy for portable food - for lunch at work or school, for picnics or road trips, it would be hard to go without. So I thought it might make your life easier to introduce you to a back-to-the-future kind of product - the venerable tiffin.

We scoured our resources and located a responsibly manufactured source for tiffins. Tiffins are traditionally used in India, but they're fast becoming popular around the globe and more and more people look to sustainable alternatives to paper or plastic especially for carrying your breakfast, lunch, dinner or snack. But they're even more useful than that.

Tiffins come with a lid that doubles as a plate. The lids clamp on to hold lids on tight. The top comes with a built in handle for easy carrying. Re-usable, dishwasher safe, these handy little containers will find their way into your life in surprising ways.

Cara (of shopOrganic fame) mentioned that she brings her tiffin to restaurants so if she wants to take home a 'doggie bag', she has her container with her. Imagine the styrofoam, paper and plastic she saves each time! If we all did that, think of how much less waste we'd each create in one simple move. And, Cara also reports that she can just grab the tiffin and head out to work the next day with her leftovers already packed. How convenient is that?

So, take a look at tiffins and report back how many creative and useful ways you have found to use tiffins to reduce, reuse and recycle!

If you're interested in the paper vs. plastic info, here you go.

In the United States, we use over 380 billion plastic bags each year. That's more than one billion plastic bags per day. One of the problems with plastic is that it does not biodegrade - it just breaks down into ever smaller pieces. These scraps find their way into rivers, oceans, parks, gardens, farms, and landfills. Animals ingest these plastic scraps causing all kinds of problems for wildlife. The amount of petroleum required to make a plastic bag is enough to drive a car one mile.

Plastic also takes fossil fuels to produce - and we know we have a finite source of fossil fuels...Most U.S. cities spend as much as 17 cents per bag in landfill, sewer cleanup and litter pickup costs, wasting millions of tax dollars.

So it seems a bit out of kilter to use it to make flimsy plastic bags to carry our groceries home in. Let's take a quick at paper.

It takes 60% more energy to make a paper bag than it does to make a plastic bag. Americans use an estimated 15 billion paper shopping bags, which requires about 18 million trees. Although paper bags are biodegradable, they do not decompose in landfills because when they're buried, the oxygen required to break down the paper is not present. The chemicals used to bleach paper can also leak into ground water. In fact, the production of paper bags creates 70% more air pollution and 50% more water pollution than the production of plastic bags.

Neither paper nor plastic present viable options for everyday use - they certainly have their uses and there are times that one or the other is the best or only option. However, if everyone reduced their use of plastic and paper bags by just one or two per year, we could reduce waste by more than 50 million pounds per year.

So, what you do DOES make a difference. Reducing just a bit and using alternatives like reusable bags when you go to the store, using tiffins or other reusable containers for take out, lunches and picnics makes a difference and every little bit adds up. You don't have to completely re-wire yourself - just a few small changes can make a big difference.