Martha Solano has tried, in the last three years, to reduce her plastic consumption. She affirms that her children have motivated her for this. She has cloth bags for her supermarket purchases and has opted to go to places that sell products in bulk. However, to dispose of the garbage that cannot be recycled, she used plastic bags.
“I know that it takes more than 500 years to degrade, plastic bags reach the oceans, I felt that I had no choice.yeah,” he says. But one of his sons told him about the compostable covers (which degrade biologically forming compost): “At first it was hard to find them, but in the end they do sell them in Ecuador”.
More than 145,000 plastic bottles have been recycled to make pet toys in Ecuador
One of the companies that distributes compostable covers based on cornstarch is Bolec Ec. Pául Romero, the company’s manager, says that when they first started with the idea, their goal was covers to collect pet excrement.
They imported samples of the covers to test them and buried them to see how they worked and confirmed that they decomposed after the third month. Then they realized that just burying the bag with the animal’s waste would not generate a fertilizer.
“I investigated and we found out that adding sawdust creates a compost and we began to suggest it to customers”, says Romero. The acceptance was such that they later added compostable t-shirt-type covers to their catalog and set up a small factory to make them, importing the raw material.
“Several composters called me to try the covers and since they were worth it, the idea was to educate people so that they understand that organic waste should be located there, together with the classification that should be done. We have grown little by little, since the culture of composting has not developed as much in the country“, He says. His main clients are in Guayaquil and Galapagos.
Ideally, these covers are industrially composted to speed up the process, but in Ecuador the garbage collection systems in the cities are deficient. However, Bolec Ec bags are made to degrade even if they are not composted.
“If industrial composting is done, the cover degrades in a week, if the composting is done at home it will take a year and if it is put in a garbage container or buried along with other waste it will take a maximum of two years to degradeadds Romero. Also, do not create the so-called microplastics that are currently a latent concern.
The Cuencan company Atlaspack also sells compostable products. It has ventured into articles such as tubs, cutlery and glasses for cold drinks. It also ventured into the corn starch pet litter liners market, but found itself in a market that is not yet mature, says Gustavo Vinueza, one of the company’s partners.
Eco-friendly straws are produced with sugarcane bagasse in Ecuador
“The price at which the (compostable) bags are sold is not yet competitive. We brought small bags like for pharmacies or pet waste. Now we have an agreement with a company from Guayaquil, but the price is a complex issue“, He says. For the other items, they found their niche in hotel, cafeteria and restaurant owners who seek to raise awareness about environmental protection and who absorb the margin of the cost of these products. Atlaspack has articles based on sugarcane bagasse and PLA (polylactic acid).
Ideally, when these products are discarded, they go to an industrial compost bin so that they can be treated as quickly as possible: “There are already large compost bins. In Quito there is one near La Carolina park, there is also in Cuenca. Ideally, people go and leave the waste so that it degrades as soon as possible, but environmental education is a complex issue. “, affirms Vinueza.
Romero agrees that the price of a compostable cover is much higher than that of plastic bags. He says that the first can cost 0.12 cents and the second is sold for up to 0.05 cents.
“Despite this, we have been growing, since the main objective is to reduce pollution and damage to nature”, he points out.
He believes that environmental education should be promoted and sales of this type of product from the State should be promoted: “I think that the reduction of the tax on plastic bags (which President Guillermo Lasso decreed recently) is a blow to companies like ours . We must continue to promote the non-use of single-use plastic”.
According to the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses, Ecuadorians, in 2022, used more disposable plastic bags (82%) than cloth or reusable material (15%).
Romero affirms that they do not seek to generate a “war” with the country’s plastic industry, since he recognizes the economic benefits it generates, but he does promote the reduction of single-use plastics: “There are plastic items that are not disposable that are necessary and important”. (YO)
Source: Eluniverso
Mario Twitchell is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his insightful and thought-provoking writing on a wide range of topics including general and opinion. He currently works as a writer at 247 news agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the industry.
