Is This The Sipping Point?
This guest blog is by Nina Goodrich, Director of The Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC) & Executive Director of GreenBlue.
Single use plastics have become the focal point for our frustration with plastic waste. Doug Woodring from the Ocean Recovery Alliance wrote in a recent article, “Switching to alternatives might not save the world but the use of single-use plastics sends a distinct message to customers that the brand and its management is not on top of an issue of growing global importance.” Straws are emblematic of our single-use addiction because they are rarely necessary and tossed in a matter of minutes. Recent moves by Starbucks, McDonald’s and others to eliminate straws provides momentum to address the single use challenge. I believe we should embrace this momentum and leverage it to tackle the larger problem of developing system-based solutions for design and recovery of all packaging material types. It’s important that we not get distracted by single substrate solutions. All…