To wrap or not to wrap cucumbers?
A question for the environment
Today at a glance👇🏽
To wrap or not to wrap cucumbers?
Building materials made out of grass
A plastic-free and self-purifying water bottle
Some good news
Can I help you?
🥒 To wrap or not to wrap cucumbers?
I don’t know if you have experienced it but supermarkets have individual cucumbers packed in plastic sheets.
Everytime I looked at them(and bought them), I felt frustrated.
Until I came across this study.
In June 2002, a study was published that looked at the impact of plastic wrapping on cucumbers
Turns out it's actually pretty good for the environment!
Plastic wrap protects more cucumbers from going bad than it hurts the environment by using extra plastic.
Plus, reducing food waste by wrapping the cucumbers was way better for the environment than the negative impact of the packaging itself.
Shows how there are so many nuances to our climate change solutions and why we need to look at them from different angles.
Question for you- what’s one thing that frustrates you the most when you see it wrapped in plastic?
🚧 Building materials made out of grass
Major Contributor…The energy sector is one of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases, and within it, the construction industry is responsible for a significant portion of these emissions. The main elements of the construction sector, steel, concrete, and timber are all sources of carbon emissions.
Carbon-Negative Panels…The team at US-based Plantd wants to decarbonize this industry. It has made panels that can be used to make walls, floors, and ceilings. But here’s the thing- these panels are not made from wood. Instead, they are made from grass. Plantd transforms renewable grass into durable building material. These panels are stronger and lighter than wood
The grass grows up to 9 meters in a year vs 10-12 years that it takes to grow trees, allowing it to be harvested faster.
It also absorbs more CO2 than the same volume of trees.
As this grass is converted into building material, the CO2 gets stored in the building, making it a carbon-negative material.
Planting the Seeds…The team is collaborating with farmers in North America who wish to replace crops such as tobacco with more sustainable options. They are also developing automated, modular, all-electric equipment that can shred grass fibers and reassemble them into structural panels.
🚰 A plastic-free and self-purifying water bottle
Planet Bottling…Tap water is not safe to drink in most parts of the world, which forces many of us to rely on plastic bottles. However, these bottles contribute to the plastic waste problem. We are adding 1.2 million plastic bottles to the planet every minute. Just imagine the amount of waste that creates.
This Doesn't Bottle Up The Planet…Indian startup Cap2O is solving this problem through its plastic-free self-purifying water bottles. These bottles can sterilize the water making it equivalent to 20 minutes of boiled water. You can fill in water from any tap and the bottle would clean it up in a few minutes.
The UV-C technology in their smart caps helps to purify the water bottle and the water.
You can refill the bottle from a public water cooler, or a roadside tap and can purify it with a single touch.
The cap also provides intermittent hydration reminders during the day.
No Microplastics…When we drink water from plastic bottles, we also ingest microplastics. Cap2O Smart Bottles prevent this from happening. All you have to do is charge the cap every 45 days!
😹 Some Good News
Eco-BNB- Airbnb will chip in for its hosts' green upgrades
Fuel-I-Dentified- Fossil fuel lobbyists will have to identify themselves when registering for Cop28
Eco-Law- How a European law might get companies around the world to cut climate pollution
🌎 Can I help you?
Apart from sharing climate-positive stories, I also work as a freelance content writer for planet-friendly brands.
Here’s some of the work that I’ve done in the recent past-
Thanks for reading today’s edition.
You can share this post with others in your network who might enjoy it.
Click that 💚 if this added some value to you.
Have a great weekend and see you next week😊
I'm not a fan of vegetables wrapped in plastic but I do buy cucumbers anyway (in summer at least, I eat soup not salad in winter). Good to know it's reducing food waste, which is definitely a scourge. Also that water bottle - genius.
Oh my gosh yes!! Me too. Not just cucumbers. Bell peppers too. It drove me crazy and I would always hunt for stores that sold it without the clingfilm. So when we told our local veggie market lady why we weren't buying her plastic wrapped veggies she suggested a workaround. She would remove the packaging when she sold it to us and reuse the clingfilm for new peppers. Win-win. The produce stayed fresh until we bought it and she got to save on buying more clingfilm and we didn't use and throw the plastic away. I've been told that clingfilm cannot be recycled by local recyclers.