Huskup – Product Review

Review by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Reusable and plastic free, Huskup brings takeaway coffee back down to earth

Durable, biodegradable and entirely free from plastic, Huskup is tackling the UK’s disposable culture one flat white at a time with a brand new reusable coffee cup made from rice husks. Using the outer hull of the rice grain, a natural and robust material that would otherwise be burnt at the mill, Huskup is harnessing an abundant waste product and giving the planet a helping hand even before the first coffee is poured.

Responding to the disposal of 7 million takeaway coffee cups every single day and the nation’s ever growing commitment to cut plastic waste from their lives, the Huskup takes the humble rice husk from earth to earth. Each cup is dishwasher safe and tough enough to withstand temperatures of -30c to 120c, yet the reusable cup can ultimately return to the soil at the end of its life and biodegrade naturally.

Free from melamine and BPA, Huskup is setting a new standard for reusable coffee cups and is ready to make every hot drink on the go that bit greener, from coffee shops and canteens to the workplace and beyond. Saving energy, materials, money and waste using an all-natural bi-product of one of the world’s most prolific store cupboard staples, the Huskup is set to make a big impact with one small change to the morning routine.

The Huskup comes in 12 different designs and can be purchased from www.huskup.com, priced at £10.95 each. Cheap they are not, in comparison to other reusable coffee cups, that is for certain, but then they are also made from a different material in a different way.

Bath-based Huskup was founded in 2018 to harness one of the world’s most abundant food waste materials, the humble rice husk, and begin a new chapter in takeaway coffee with a cup that is both durable and biodegradable. Entirely plastic, tree and toxin free, the Huskup contains no melamine or BPA, meaning that no nasties can make their way into drinks. These eco-friendly cups are also tough enough to take on the dishwasher and safe for reheating coffee in the microwave, but will simply decompose and return to the earth at the end of their lives. Launching with 12 designs, having teamed up with like-minded independent artists to create products that represent the Huskup ethos, these reusable cups are ready to bring takeaway coffee back down to earth.

While the material of the Huskup is free of melamine it has the feel of that plastic material, or that of Bakelite, for those that remember that material, but the material is not even, actual plastic. In my opinion the scope for this material itself, a plastic-like substance that is made from natural ingredients which harmlessly return to the soil, goes beyond just coffee cups.

As far as biodegradability is concerned Huskup are certified to the compostability standards, European EN13432 including the following elements:

1. Biodegradation - materials turn to soil through microbial action

2. Disintegration - the materials fall into small pieces

3. Eco-toxicity - seeds can germinate in the resulting compost - i.e. it is useful for plant growth

4. Heavy metals - the compost is safe to go onto land

The manufacturing process takes the waste rice husk and mixes that with some natural starches – and those are, alas, trade secrets. The cups are then molded and formed into the huskup. No melamine or other plastic binders are used.

The lid and the band around the body of the cup are made of, what in my opinion, would appear to be silicone.

The cup appears to be extremely sturdy and, as I said before, feels like a melamine or Bakelite product, but is neither. It should last for many, many years and when it finally has to be replaced you do not have to have a guilty conscience as to its disposal. That still does not mean that you should thoughtlessly toss it at the end of its life into the countryside.

The only, for some it sure would be, major turn off is the fact that the product is “Made in China” while the company is British. The reason, though, probably is that rice husks are more common in China (and elsewhere in Asia) than, obviously, in Britain and hence the product is Made in China.

Web: www.huskup.com

Twitter: @huskup_eco

Instagram: huskup_eco

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/huskup/

© 2018

Zero waste myths: should we really be avoiding plastic?

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

First of all it also must be said that “zero waste” is a myth itself. There is no such thing as “zero waste”. It will never be possible. Having said that, however, does not mean that we should not reduce waste, especially in way of packaging, and waste that occurs also through planned obsolescence.

Images of ocean plastic pollution are causing so much revulsion that many people are switching to some supposedly more “environmentally friendly” materials to try to reduce their impact. But does this actually work? How much greener are the alternatives?

Also, there is plastic and then there is plastic. Single-use plastic, in my opinion, is a bad idea. We should, with the exception of may be a few things, avoid any kind of single use altogether. Other plastics, for plastic products intended to last for a long time, are a different story and here the material, quite often, is the appropriate one, unless we return to (more) natural materials.

Plastic vs Paper: It is easy to see how paper bags are seen as and appear to be more environmentally-friendly than plastic ones. They are made from trees, which grow in nature, and can biodegrade, in fact compost, when they are finished with.

Research, however, consistently finds that paper bags have a far higher carbon footprint than plastic ones, because the process of making them uses so much energy, and not just energy but also lots of water. Trees may be in harmony with nature, but the process for mashing them up into paper is not.

True, paper bags can decompose, but it is not exactly zero waste to use so much energy producing something that is not designed to last. And if you are careful to reuse and recycle a plastic bag, it should be possible to prevent it ending up as litter or in the ocean, whereas every single paper bag will have made a hefty contribution to global warming, regardless of where it ends up. The best option, of course, is to avoid the problem of single-use waste altogether by using reusable bags.

If you are a business and you want to offer something to customers who have forgotten their own bags, consider doing as Arjuna Wholefoods in Cambridge does, which is to invite people to drop off their old plastic bags to be reused. Alternatively, bags made from recycled materials is the next best thing. Just please don't hand out new single-use bags for free, as this does not reflect how much it costs the Earth to produce them.

As for the idea that paper is “more recyclable” than plastic, this has now been repeated so many times, that it has become almost fact. While it is true that paper can be recycled, the quality of it degrades in the process. Plastic can also be recycled, although some types of plastic are easier to recycle than others, and packaging that mixes plastic with other materials can be more tricky to recycle (single-use coffee cups are the most well-known example of this), but also here, in the main, the quality deteriorates and to make good new plastic from recyclables a great deal of virgin polymer needs to be added to the mix. So, there is no such thing – generally – as 100% recycled plastic, with a few exceptions, maybe. .

So, when it comes to recyclability, there is not that much to be gained from choosing paper-based products over plastic ones, and anyway, it is actually a big mistake to be overly focused on how recyclable something is, when most of the impacts of the stuff we consume is in the process of producing it, rather than what happens to it at the end of its life. This is true regardless of the material, but in terms of paper, we need to factor in how much carbon it takes to produce it.

The best way to lower impacts from packaging waste is to reduce the amount of packaging that we buy, and where possible, buy products packaged in recycled materials. Though it has also be said that often we, as consumers, do have little choice as to the amount of packaging of any kind, be this paper, cardboard (often laminated with foil), or plastic except by voting with our wallet and not buying over-packaged products. This can be a difficult undertaking, however,

Plastic vs Metal: Stainless steel tins and bottles are something of a zero waste style statement. There is no doubt that they look good, but the process of producing metals like stainless steel and aluminium releases scary amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. This means that reusables made from metal will need to avoid a lot of waste before they save more resources than it took to produce them.

The choice is really up to each of us: Option one would be stainless steel (or other) products, which are very high impact to produce, but highly durable, or option two would be plastic bottles and containers, which are more environmentally-friendly to produce, but tend to wear out somewhat more quickly, so that you may end up using more of them in the end. This is essentially a judgment call, based on your personal routines and how much waste you expect to avoid by using your reusable bottle and containers.

Single-use cups vs reusable cups: Several studies have looked into how many times a reusable cup needs to be used before it saves more resources than it took to produce. As they are carried out by academics, there is no simple answer – it depends on which type of reusable cup you are using, which type of single-use cup you are trying avoid, and which environmental impact you are considering – but it seems to range from 5-16 times. So, if you would otherwise expect to use at least 17 single-use cups, consider investing in a reusable one. For top marks, see if you can pick one up in a charity shop or other kind of secondhand store.

Glass jars vs plastic packaging: The jury certainly appears to be out on this one still. Glass tends to lose points compared to plastic because of the high carbon emissions involved in manufacturing and transporting it (think of how much more glass weighs) but can redeem itself by being more efficient to recycle than certain types of plastic. Glass jars, for instance, if we want to be thrifty in the way our grandparents and their parents were, also have a great reuse potential for us, whether as storage jars for all kinds of things or as drinking vessels, etc. And the reuse thought should always come well before any thought of recyclability.

If you can and will reuse or refill jars, the that is your best option. Otherwise, there is, apparently, no clear justification for always choosing glass jars over plastic.

Plastic bags vs cotton or other textile bags: Its a bit of a mystery why cotton has gained a reputation for being an environmentally friendly material. It takes 20,000 liters of water to make 1kg of cotton, and much of it is sourced from countries where water is extremely scarce. Worldwide, cotton production causes pollution and biodiversity loss. But there are alternatives to cotton and cotton bags, such as hessian, aka burlap, canvas, and others, including, though it is oil-based to some extent, woven and non-woven polyester bags.

When it comes to plastic there are – if I may put it this way – good plastics and bad plastics and I am not putting so-called bio-degradable into the category of good necessarily either. Also, as far as plastic water bottles, the reusable kind I mean here, are concerned not all leach chemicals. It all depends on the plastic. The Dutch designed (and produced?) “de Dopper”, as an example, does not, and is also of a rather ingenious design.

The biggest problem is plastic packaging and the over-packaging of products, often products that do not need to be packaged in such a way at all. That is where the changes have to happen and we must force industry to make the change.

© 2018

Unlock the untapped potential of your faucet

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Drinking tap water might be the simplest solution to ocean plastic pollution (oh dear, and this even rhymes).

The solution to plastic water bottle pollution could be as simple as educating the general masses that (their) tap water is safe to drink. While it is not the case everywhere – the safety of the tap water, that is – and unfortunately also in many places in the US, in most places in the more civilized countries it is the case. Also, tap water undergoes far more rigorous testing for purity and safety than does any bottled water.

Bottled water, for anyone who does not know it as yet, is also one of the greatest scams ever created by industry. In the great majority of cases the water is nothing more than tap water filled into plastic bottles – the latter which then end up polluting the environment – and while it is true that in some cases that water went through some additional “filtration” treatment to remove chlorine, for instance, it still is tap water.

And for a bottle of that, which as tap water would cost you just a fraction of a cent, you end up paying hundred times as much and more. That sure does not make sense. Not only are we hurting the environment with the plastic (bottle) waste, we are also hurting ourselves in our own pockets.

The pollution of those bottles, which more often than not are not recycled in any way, shape or form, pollutes the environment even if they are properly disposed off into the waste stream.

In 2017 about 480 billion bottles of plastic will be produced and less than 10% of them will be recycled. The remaining 90% will end up somewhere – whether discarded in nature or in landfills – where the plastic then breaks down into microplastic and ends up in our groundwater, rivers and eventually lakes and oceans. In addition to plastic pollution, bottled water also has an enormous carbon footprint from production and transportation.

And the problem is getting worse as bottled water consumption is growing, all while households may already have access to a clear and present solution, namely their kitchen tap.

Unfortunately, some people are afraid to drink from the tap. A survey of 1500 households in the US and Europe found a growing mistrust in tap water. The concerns are based on a myriad of factors including multiple water crises like the one in Flint, Michigan, the water database by EWG and microplastics reported in tap water by Orbs, preference in taste, health expert opinions, bottled water advertising, and urban myths.

There is also a misconception around recycling, mineral water, and everything else related to bottled water. And so more people are turning to bottled water.

While there are some issues here and there the fact is that, generally, tap water has gotten better in both Europe and the US over the last ten years. More importantly, there is no scientific evidence that bottled water is healthier than tap water.

So here are a couple of recommendations:

1. Drink tap water. It is almost free and in most places in Europe and North America it is as healthy and clean, if not even more so, as bottled water.

2. Anyone worried about the quality of the tap water or who does not like the taste can use a water filter, such as a filter jug even, costing very little to buy and “run”.

3. Always bring a refillable water bottle to stay hydrated.

4. Ask for tap water in restaurants and bars. This, alas, may not always be successful.

It is time to stop polluting the environment with plastic and to clean up the oceans. This way our children and grandchildren can enjoy clean oceans full of life and plastic free sand beneath their feet on the beach. We also must not forget that, if we eat fish, those tiny particles of plastic find their way into the food chain – they already have done so – and end up in the fish that we eat and thus in us.

© 2017

Plastic, plastic use, and plastic pollution

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Plastic is pervasive nowadays and there is almost no place where you can look and plastic will not be staring you in the face in some for or the other. The computer keyboard, the case of the laptop, of the cellphone; all plastic, and that just for starters.

Since the real commercial production of plastic begun in the 1950s the world has produced more than eight billion tons of plastic which is about as much in weight as a billion elephants. Now let that sink in for a moment. That's an awful lot of the stuff. And that which has not been recycled or burned is in landfills and much of it, in fact, is floating around in the sea, causing problems to marine life, and in the end to us, who eat some of that marine life.

In 1950 the world produced around two million tons of plastic per year, while 65 years later, in 2015, it was 380 million tons in that year alone. Half of the so far produced plastic has been has been made in the last 13 years. Until 2015 only nine percent of this plastic has been recycled while twelve percent has been burned. The rest, alas, is still with us, predominately in landfills.

In some cases, let's face it, there, probably, is no real substitute for plastic and there is plastic and then there is plastic, as I keep saying. Instead of making it from petroleum there are other ways plastic materials could and can be made but even if the plastic is from a plant-based source it remains plastic and compostability is in most cases nothing more than greenwash.

On the other hand plastic can be extremely durable – aside from being light – and I say the can be because some of it is not made to be durable and that is due again to industry's design of needing things to break in order to sell more of the things to us.

It is the single use plastic that really is the greatest of problems, whether it comes in the form of the all present and all pervasive PET-bottle or the other plastic packaging such as fruit punnets, salad bowls, etc. ad infinitum.

What bugs me is that many of those things can be given an extended life if we but put our thinking cap on when we encounter them. Only recently I rescued the bases of some Sainsbury's sandwich trays (the kind you but ready-made sandwiches in for parties) which will become the trays for plant pots when raising seedlings.

I have found that the plastic that is used for those salad bowls with ready-made made salads from supermarkets, for instance, is a fairly flexible and also strong kind in that there is nothing preventing us from reusing those small and not so small bowls for a variety of uses in the kitchen, at table and otherwise in the home (and garden).

Those single-use plastic beer beakers (1pt), often made of a strong and flexible plastic, that are used at festivals and such like, instead of glasses, and then, obviously, being tossed thoughtless into the countryside, make for great propagators put upside down over a small plant pot for raising seedlings.

While, obviously, it would be good if we could get rid off all single-use plastic I, personally, doubt that that is going to happen soon and thus we ensure that we dispose of the stuff responsibly (for recycling ideally though we can but wonder how much recycling actually truly happens) or, maybe better still, must find a way of making use of those things by reusing, repurposing and upcycling them in other ways, stretching their lifespans for as far as possible.

In the case of plastic drinks bottles, be it water or other, I would advocate the introduction of a deposit, as it is done in some countries already, and the use of reverse vending machines where such bottles can be returned to and the deposit given to whoever returns them.

Bottled water is a scam anyway as most of the water is not “spring water” or “mineral water” but simply ordinary, often tap, water filled into bottles and sold at a huge profit. In most places in Europe, bar a couple of countries, the local tap water is better than any bottled water. The US still has a problem despite considering itself to be such a great advanced nation. In some places the municipal water supply there is as bad, sometimes even worse, than that in many a city in the Third World.

The problem nowadays though is also that other drinks and products that used to be packaged in glass come now in plastic bottles and jars, such as wine, spirits, peanut butter, etc. The claim is that this is being done to reduce the impact on the environment as glass is heavier than plastic and thus transportation requires more fuel. Come on, let's be honest dearest people. It is cheaper and the environmental claim is but hogwash or should we better call it greenwash. Fact is that plastic bottles and jars are cheaper than glass and that they are cheaper to transport than glass. Hence the move to more and more plastic.

As consumer we are facing a dilemma when it comes to the above, that is to say drinks and produce in plastic jars, let's not even talk about fruit and vegetables packages in unnecessary plastic (wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry the other day when I saw at ALDI apples packaged in the kind of tube in which tennis balls are sold) as in the great majority of cases we do not have an alternative. It was Sainsbury's a couple of years ago that started the trend of peanut butter in plastic jars and now almost every producer of peanut butter has followed suit.

Wines and spirits, at least those at the lower end of the price scale, now also come in plastic, rather than glass, in our supermarkets and the letters WTF very much come to mind with regards to that.

So, instead of working to reduce the problem industry and supermarkets actually perpetuate the problem by introducing more and more plastic packaging. Get rid off the plastic carrier bag, to some degree, and they just get some more plastic in that you can't avoid, more or less. Sometimes I do wonder whether they actually want to help or not, and it looks more like that they do not want to help at all. Plastic is cheaper to use than glass and much cheaper to ship as it is lighter and there are no breakages. It's all down to money yet again. But where does that leave us, as consumer, who are left without an alternative and choice often?

© 2017