Eco friendly alternatives to Single Use Plastics
If you run your own cafe, coffee shop, catering or takeaway business, the chances are that you’ll be looking for sustainable alternatives to the single use plastic products you use to package takeaway food and drinks. From cups for hot drinks and food pots, through to environmentally friendly plastic cutlery, we have a range of alternatives to plastic packaging for food that doesn’t cost the earth.
Who we are
Single Use Alternatives was founded by Adrian and Neil; two brothers who are passionate about enjoying the outdoors and caring for the environment. Concerned about the impact single use plastics are having upon the environment, we decided to offer a range of cost effective high quality, alternative products.
To find out more about our products simply browse through our website. If you have any questions we’d love to hear from you: please complete the enquiry form on our contact page.
Our range of plastic alternatives
At Single Use Alternatives we have a wide range of plastic free alternatives to single use items. What makes our products different to others you might have come across before is cost as we believe that affordable alternatives should be easily available to businesses and individual customers. Our great value products are all plastic-free and include a wide choice of sustainable compostable and biodegradable food packaging. Designed to help you protect your profits and the environment, our range includes everything you need to run your catering, events business or for entertaining at home.
Choosing environmentally friendly options is a great way to reduce plastic waste and our range includes biodegradable and compostable plastic straws, plastic cups, food wrap, bags, pots and much more. Unlike their plastic counterparts which result in plastic pollution, our products are designed to be either compostable and biodegradable.
How our products should be recycled
Plastic products have been commercially manufactured for many decades and since then it is estimated that over 8 billion tonnes of plastic has been produced. Unfortunately the majority of plastic waste either ends up as plastic pollution or as plastic waste. When you consider that plastic can take around 400 years to degrade, and that most of the plastic ever produced still exists in some form, this is catastrophic for our planet.
Something has to change and thanks to global publicity, we now know that we have to find an alternative approach. However, because recycling schemes vary from area to area and alternatives to plastic can be historically expensive and difficult to source, it can be very difficult to find a convenient, affordable solution.
With this in mind, it is our aim to help our customers find cost-effective alternatives to single use plastics. In addition, we are also working closely with local councils and manufacturers to ‘close the loop’ between variations in recycling facilities. As a result you’ll find that our products are realistically priced, convenient to order and simple to recycle.
To make buying the products that are easiest to recycle in your area as simple as possible, we’ve grouped them into categories according to the materials used. These categories are: Compostable, Biodegradable and Recyclable.
Compostable products take around 90 days to break down in an industrial composter such as those used by many local councils. However, the process takes longer in a home composter. It’s important to remember that although many of our compostable products might look and feel just like plastic, they mustn’t be recycled with other plastic recycling.
The biodegrading process is similar to composting in that it must be processed in special industrial composters if they are to break down and biodegrade in a timely manner. It’s important to note that not all local authorities currently offer recycling for biodegradable items so please check the situation in your local area first.
We don’t currently stock any recyclable items as plastics have to be sorted before being shredded, washed and then melted into the pellets required to make new items, which creates greenhouse gases and hence drives climate change. In addition, some new products can be made from either bio-based and fossil-based materials but this doesn’t mean that they can be biodegraded.
Get in touch with Single Use Alternatives to find out more
Our product range is designed to provide cost-effective eco-friendly food packaging products for catering businesses and individual customers. To find out more, please get in touch via the contact page on our website, or email us at contact@singleusealternatives.co.uk