3 WIDELY USED PLASTIC FREE DISPOSABLES IN THE WORLD

Pink smoothie with bamboo straw woven green coconut leaves eight sets of chopsticks on a white bowl ontop of bamboo mat background of black text with white background and black nup logo

A lot of our plastic waste in the world comes from single use disposables. But if we take a deeper look around the world, many cultures are adapting zero waste disposables. Here are the top 3.

green bamboo straws

1. In Vietnam, clever farmers have taken grass that grow in shallow river waters and turned them to straws- yes! drinking straws that typically gets used once and tossed, ending up in oceans. 500 million plastic straws are disposed of everyday in the USA alone. Most of these only used once, for a few minutes. The irony being that they last for decades somewhere in earth. Every single plastic straw you've used in your life still exists somewhere in the world- in a landfill or the oceans or traveling between both.

wooven coconut leaves

2 In many parts of south east Asia, food is still wrapped in banana and coconut leaves for take-away. Banana leaves are easy to find, flexible and fragrant. Coconut leaves are woven to diamond shaped pockets of rice. These leaves are woven by hand, rice grains poured in and then cooked with the leaves. The result? fragrant rice!

3 Nothing could ever beat disposable chopsticks instead moulded plastic cutlery. Once a pair of chopsticks are discarded, these long pieces of wood simply goes back to earth. Chopsticks have had a long history, going as far as 1200 B.C. They were originally cooking utensils made of bronze. A population boom has pushed won cost saving habits across many things in daily life, one of which is eating. To save, people started cutting up food into smaller bite-size piece. These were then perfect to eat chopsticks. Its popularity quickly spread across many parts of Asia. Today, there are used widely around the world.

These are 3 practices widely used today that isn't going away. I hope this will remind you to observe and your version of plastic free disposables around you.

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Faith Manuel, Nup Customer

Happy with it. First of all, I I would choose these toothbrushes even if sustainability was not a factor. I was really wasn't sure if I was going to like these, but wanted to check them out, because I'm step-by-step working on reducing my trash impact on the world in every way I can, small and large. Now I'm happy to report that I love the way these feel in my hand and in my mouth. The contour of the bristles is effective in getting good surface contact, and they are just the right balance between firm and gentle. I'm not sure what the bristles are made of, but at least my plastic trash has been reduced in a great way.

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Edwin Alexander, Nup Customer

I was looking for an environmentally friendly toothbrush for a while. Although, I was afraid that the bristles would be too soft (which most of the bamboo toothbrushes are), but this one was great!! It was much more sturdy than I expected and I LOVE it. It comes with four toothbrushes so I gave one to my brother and hopefully I can convince my other family members to make the switch.

Haley Fuller, Nup Customer

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Opal Waters, Nup Customer

My entire family of 4 has been using these for about a month and I haven't had one complaint, and as anyone with kids and a husband knows, that means A LOT! Getting used to a wooden handle versus a plastic one takes a little getting used to, but the bamboo is of a high quality and it is not at all abrasive and over all, it is relatively smooth. It's not like you feel as if you are going to get splinters in your moth or that it is going to eventually break in half! My youngest is a toothbrush chewer abuses all of her toothbrushes horribly and this one held up great! I was also really impressed with the bristles. I was expecting them to be pretty tough but they were just the right texture to feel like they were really getting the job done but not hurting the gums at all.

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