Hey guys!
This blog post will talk about the Sustainable Eco-Market in depth and how it is increasingly getting saturated.
The Sustainable Eco-Market refers to the market in which products promote ‘sustainability’ and eco friendliness. Such items include often easily disposable items like reusable straws, reusable containers, tumblers (in replacement for those disposable coffee cups you buy in Starbucks daily! UK disposes 2.5 Billion coffee cups a year! Imagine where all that rubbish can go to…) , reusable grocery bags in replacement of plastic bags and even reusable coffee filters. This post will focus on products related to the food.
For example in Singapore, because of the fast-paced life where many are too busy at work and in school to conjure up a meal from scratch, there is a prevalence of a ‘takeaway culture’. Many would opt for the convenience of ordering from Food Delivery platforms like GrabFood, Food Panda and Deliveroo or takeaway (or ‘Dabao’) from hawker centres and other food establishments instead. More often than not, the food packaging is of disposal plastic containers and utensils. A 6-month Singapore Environment Council Survey (SEC) found that Singapore used 467 million polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles a year and 473 million plastic disposable items like takeaway containers where only less than 20 per cent of these items were recycled.
In 2018, 1.6 million tonnes of domestic waste was disposed, and a third of it is made up of packaging. Of the third, more than half of it were plastic disposables. However, out of all these, only 4% is recycled. More can be done to reduce the dependency on disposable food packaging as well as increasing our recycling rates.
Hence, many initiatives sprung up in the recent years in light of this problem. One of which is Zero Waste SG in 2017, where they started the Bring Your Own (BYO) Singapore movement. BYO movement partnered with 430 retail outlets and offered incentives to customers who bring their own reusable bags, bottles or containers. This reduced approximately 2.5 million plastic disposables. This inspired many individuals to start bringing their own containers (BYO) to hawker centres and other food establishments to reduce food packaging wastes. Interestingly, this also inspired the start-up of many small business owners to start selling reusable lunchboxes and reusable food packaging to promote a ‘sustainable lifestyle’.
However, in Singapore and evidently in the whole world, the market for sustainable and eco-friendly products is increasingly getting saturated. This is where we draw the line between being eco friendly and sustainable to being pollutive and wasteful. There is a growing number of small business jumping on the bandwagon of selling reusable straws, tumblers, lunchboxes and many more to promote a sustainable, eco-friendly and reduced pollutive lifestyle. However, though we do agree that the foundation of this venture is noble as it does promote and advocate for a sustainable shift in lifestyle, the saturation of the market only means that more products are being produced and will end up being wasted and improperly disposed.
What then, can people do?
Shifting to a ‘sustainable lifestyle’ seems like jumping on a trendy bandwagon. Instead of buying a new lunchbox or reusable utensils set, one can just seek what they already have at home. One does not need to purchase a brand new set of ‘reusable’ items when there’s a 99% chance an unused set of lunchbox and utensils is left unused tucked away at the back of the kitchen cabinet.
That is one thing we can do to be a more mindful consumer to reduce unnecessary pollution. Comment down below if you have any more ideas!
References
Fearnley-Whittingstall, H., 2016. Viewpoint: The waste mountain of coffee cups. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-36882799 [Accessed September 10, 2020].
Hong, J., 2018. Singapore goes through 1.76 billion plastic items a year, recycles less than 20%. The Straits Times. Available at: https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/singapore-goes-through-167-billion-plastic-items-a-year-recycles-less-than-20-per-cent-of [Accessed September 10, 2020].
Towards Zero Waste Singapore, Packaging Waste. Towards Zero Waste Singapore. Available at: https://www.towardszerowaste.gov.sg/waste-streams/packaging-waste/ [Accessed September 10, 2020].