ප්ලාස්ටික් අඩු කිරීම: සම්පත් මාර්ගෝපදේශයක්

As a follow-up to our December webinar, we’ve put together the following guide to explain and provide more information about the methods that Monterey Bay Aquarium and Phipps Conservatory Botanical Garden used to reduce their single-use plastic waste. This article describes different approaches and tools to reducing plastic, including both top-down and bottom-up approaches, waste audits, and staff engagement via a plastics hackathon.

Plastic is pervasive in the retail and service industries, from bags and utensils to containers and packaging. Not only does plastic pollute our ecosystem, but it also produces a significant carbon footprint to create, destroy and/or recycle. Plastic production contributes 232 million tons of CO2 emissions per year. Plastic is also subject to a poor chain of custody, in which much plastic that is thought to be recycled is actually thrown into a landfill. Sadly, less than 9% of all plastic is recycled or reused. The average amount of plastic waste that is discarded into landfills each year is 300 million tons. Even when we do recycle, the process involves emitting immense amounts of carbon; recycling (or incineration) produces about fifteen million tons of greenhouse gases. No matter how you use plastics, carbon emissions are being released. You can find this information and more details on the contributions of plastics to climate change in the report The New Coal: Plastics and Climate Change, a resource from Beyond Plastics.

Where to Start

In a world where plastic is so ubiquitous that it’s easy to ignore in day-to-day operations, finding a place to start to reduce your consumption can be difficult. One of the best ways to start a project is to think about is your approach to reduction.

ඒ top-down approach is where managers and executives make decisions that trickle down throughout the system; a bottom-up approach is where employees create ideas or projects that can trickle upward. These methods complement one another, allowing an organization to both make immediate, effective change when possible and help ensure commitment and enthusiasm throughout the workforce to catch details that fall outside the purview of high-level planning.

ෆිප්ස් සංරක්ෂණාගාරය

Phipps Conservatory used both top-down and bottom-up approaches to reduce their plastic usage. From the top-down perspective, Phipps leadership worked directly with management of its café to mandate a holistic approach to plastics reduction. Through this collaboration, Phipps was able to eliminate all plastic utensils, cups, water bottles, lids, silverware, and plates with compostable or reusable alternatives. One of the biggest components was the elimination of soda and plastic water bottles and the installation of water refilling stations throughout the conservatory.

To complement a bottom-up approach, Phipps embraced the hackathon event format to create an opportunity for employees to brainstorm solutions to plastic reduction. A Hackathon is an event that allows employees to create solutions to problems. Hackathons began as an opportunity for technology professionals to collaborate and solve technical problems; today, schools, businesses, communities, governments and nonprofits are using hackathons to design solutions to numerous problems, including the issue of single-use plastics.

Justin Stockdale of the Pennsylvania Resources Council served as an expert advisor for the six-hour hackathon event. Thirty-one employees from across all Phipps departments voluntarily signed up to participate. Employees were split up into groups focusing on subjects including compostable alternatives, plastic consumption and redistribution, plastic waste in horticulture, plastic usage by guests, plastic used for distributing flowers, and plastic signage and packaging materials. The event generated forty-two innovative ideas about how to reduce plastics within all departments. The list of ideas is attached below. Some of these thoughts are small and some larger, but hackathons support all ideas.

The event ignited a will to continue to reduce plastics, and eight employees decided to create a Plastic Reduction Team to continue honing these efforts. Phipps employees have successfully implemented nine of these ideas into the horticulture, marketing, events, and education departments, with more to come.

Monterey Bay

Monterey Bay Aquarium is a leader of sustainability and climate-related education; their mission is rooted in sustainability and their projects go beyond the walls of the aquarium to model best practices for their guests and communities. Monterey’s relationship to plastic reductions starts with the ocean; about 9 million tons of plastic pieces are estimated to be thrown into the ocean every year. Claudia Pineda Tibbs, sustainability manager of Monterey Bay Aquarium, describes how a waste audit was used to evaluate and reduce their plastic consumption, overall findings from the audit, and challenges and opportunities of their plastic consumption.

 “The Monterey County recycling plant stopped receiving certain types of plastics, so our zoologists had to rethink how and what we were feeding our animals. Sadly, what our animals eat falls under veterinary diet, so this was difficult to make any changes. Our staff decided to complete a waste audit at the beginning of 2020 to evaluate our waste sorting. Waste was collected for 24 hours all over the campus including areas such as visitor, café, parking lots, and employee restricted areas. Waste audits are an assessment of a facilities’ waste program, usually to see if there are any misconnections about how to sort the trash or to gage what your employees or guests are bringing to your site. Audits are helpful tracking tools to establish a baseline of your institution’s waste consumption, how you are sorting, and to see if you need another trash avenue.”

Type of Trash	Generation %	Pounds	Amount that could be diverted	Contamination
Landfill	40%	677 lbs.	80%
Recycling	9%	159 lbs.		32%
කොම්පෝස්ට්	51%	861 lbs.		0.4%

The overall findings of the waste audit are shown above. “Very insightful, fascinating, and disgusting” is how Tibbs describes the process. As you can see, composting efforts represented the highest amount of generation with the lowest amount of contamination. “About 40% of our trash is going to a landfill of which 80% could be diverted depending on the county. Education amongst our guests and our staff is extremely important to help encourage correct sorting. Our staff has worked diligently to sort café waste into their correct bins and reduce our waste. Retail and culinary partners have been super helpful; some of our retail suppliers have stopped wrapping their products in plastic and instead use cardboard which is compostable.” Monterey Bay Aquarium reached out to their culinary suppliers including Mission Creamery who now have changed the way they ship their product to reduce plastic consumption.

One of the most challenging issues that most institutions who serve guests face is reducing the waste that visitors bring onsite. Institutions can reduce the amount of plastic they produce but will still have to try to divert the waste that their guests bring onto their site. At Monterey Bay, student lunches were observed to contain a multitude of plastic wraps. Another prevalent issue is that the waste collection site controls what can and cannot be recycled. “The county used to have an anaerobic digester that can break down less nutrient-filled products such as paper towels, but it is not in use anymore. Because we cannot control what the county takes, our plastic diversion depends on the county.”

For more on waste auditing, check out Harvard University’s Sustainability at Harvard article, “How to Host a Waste Audit.”

අමුත්තන්ගේ සහභාගීත්වය

අප අපද්‍රව්‍ය පද්ධති අඩු කිරීම සහ වෙනස් කිරීම නිසා, අපගේ අමුත්තන් සම්බන්ධ කර ගැනීම සහ නිරත වීම අත්‍යවශ්‍ය වේ. අමුත්තන් දිරිමත් කළ හැකි සමහර ක්‍රම නම්, ඔවුන්ගේ ප්ලාස්ටික් පරිභෝජනය අඩු කිරීම, සංඥා, අධ්‍යාපනය, ඔබේ තෑගි සාප්පුවේ විශේෂාංග කිරීමට තෝරාගත් අයිතම සහ තවත් දේ ඇතුළත් වේ.

Phipps Conservatory සහ Monterey Bay Aquarium යන දෙකම ඔවුන්ගේ ප්ලාස්ටික් අඩු කිරීමට තම අමුත්තන් දිරිමත් කිරීමට විවිධ ප්‍රවේශයන් දෙකක් භාවිතා කරයි. ප්‍රතිචක්‍රීකරණය කරන ලද ප්ලාස්ටික් වලින් සාදන ලද අධ්‍යාපනික ගයිර් ප්‍රදර්ශනයක් සාගරයේ ප්ලාස්ටික් සිරවීමේ අදහස ගවේෂණය කරයි. නැවත භාවිත කළ හැකි ජල බෝතල්, බෑග් සහ වෙනත් ප්ලාස්ටික් ආදේශක විකිණීමෙන් සහ කැෆේ සහ සිල්ලර වෙළඳසැල් තුළ ප්ලාස්ටික් ලබා නොදීමෙන් ඔවුන්ගේ ප්ලාස්ටික් පරිභෝජනය අඩු කිරීමට අපගේ අමුත්තන් දිරිමත් කිරීමට මින්මැදුර කැපවී සිටී. නැවත පිරවුම් ජල ස්ථාන නැවත භාවිතා කළ හැකි ජල බෝතල් දිරිගන්වන ප්‍රදර්ශන පුරා ප්‍රවේශ විය හැක. Phipps සංරක්ෂණාගාරය එහි අමුත්තන්ට ඉවත දැමිය හැකි දේ පිළිබඳව දැනුවත් කිරීමට සංඥා පුවරු භාවිතා කරයි, එක් එක් පොදු අයිතමයේ 3-d නිරූපණයන් සහ එය යා යුත්තේ කොතැනද යන්න. කොම්පෝස්ට් කළ හැකි දේ සහ නැති දේ නොදැන සිටින අපගේ අමුත්තන්ට සංඥා පුවරුව වැදගත් වේ.

තනි භාවිත ප්ලාස්ටික් අඩු කිරීමට අන් අය සම්බන්ධ කර ගැනීම පිළිබඳ වැඩි විස්තර සඳහා, මෙම සම්පත් පරීක්ෂා කරන්න.

• ප්ලාස්ටික් අපද්රව්ය මත:
  • The New Coal: Plastics and Climate Change
    • (ප්ලාස්ටික් වලින් ඔබ්බට)
  • තවත් ප්ලාස්ටික් පැමිණෙමින් තිබේ: දේශගුණික විපර්යාස සඳහා එයින් අදහස් කරන්නේ කුමක්ද?
    • (කොලොම්බියා දේශගුණික පාසල)
  • ඔබේ සත්වෝද්‍යානය හෝ මින්මැදුර ප්ලාස්ටික් භාවිතය අඩු කළ හැකි ක්‍රම 10ක්
    • (සාගර ව්‍යාපෘතිය)
  • ඔබේ සත්වෝද්‍යානයේ හෝ මින්මැදුරේ තනි භාවිත ප්ලාස්ටික් අඩු කරන්නේ කෙසේද?
    • (ලෝක සත්වෝද්යාන සහ මින්මැදුර සංගමය)

• අපද්රව්ය විගණනය පිළිබඳ:
  • WasteWise සහභාගීවන්නන් සඳහා හොඳම භාවිතයන්
    • (පරිසර ආරක්ෂණ ඒජන්සිය)
  • How to Host a Waste Audit
    • (හාවඩ් විශ්ව විද්‍යාලය, තිරසාරත්වය)