How Plates Made From Sugarcane Could Help India's Plastic Problem

We went to uttar pradesh, India, to see how chuck is making biodegradable tableware from worldwide waste polystyrene was discovered in 1839 and is 10 to 20 times lighter than the fluffiest meringue. It wasn't used for plates and packaging until more than a century later when fast food chains went global, but recycling has never caught up, as is evident across India where an amount of plastic equivalent to the weight of the Taj Mahal ends up in streetsfilling up without government oversight creating unsafe conditions that can lead to fires the idea behind chuck is to replace some of that plastic with biodegradable sugarcane waste india is the world's second largest producer of sugar making more than 25 million metric tons in 2020 and that means mountains of bagasse km sugar mill alone produces over 3 500 tons of it per day during the harvesting season [Music] most of this material will be burned to produce electricity it's a low pollution alternative to fossil fuels but it has other uses too we were told this is a very good fiber for molding for over 40 years veg krishna's family turned sugarcane waste into paper in a factory owned by his parents they named it yashpaka and their company slogan is packaging with the soul but the business ran into financial troubles and had to deal with faulty equipment we didn't know whether the company would run the next day or not what i realized was that all the work that i wanted to do was towards the ecology and environment ved went back to the drawing board he spent years experimenting with new ways to use bagas eventually we realized that you know we have sugarcane pulp and that can be molded into different products which can actually be used as placement for these styrofoam products and by 2017 the company was producing tableware products under a new brand chuck chuck was really good because of course it was about disposable you can chuck it it was also good with chak which is taste in hindi veg set up shop near sugar plantations and mills to keep costs and the carbon footprint low around 100 truckloads of bagas arrive at the chuck factory every day during peak harvest season it can take two hours to unload each truck if the material dries out the fiber loses strength so we have to keep it in wet piles workers then remove a layer of the tiniest fibers before washing and pressure cooking it same concept as you cook dal in your home the same way you cook you use a certain alkaline product to be able to remove the stickies you know if you think of a sugary product it's a little sticky the alkaline solution helps make it moldable workers wash the sludge again to remove any residual chemicals then they distribute it into different machines and molds that press it into shape squeezing out all the water other companies bleach their products but chuck decided against it we were told in the market indians don't like to eat in brown it has to be white but i said no if we are true to our basic idea that we want to be more ecologically sustainable then we have to stay with lesser and lesser chemicals chuck also sources a starch-based compostable packaging for its products instead of virgin plastic we of course realize that our whole ecosystem dna world revolves around the idea of leaving the earth cleaner so if that is the case and we package in plastic then we've defeated the purpose workers like shilwadi check the finished products for quality before counting and packaging it's me hybridizing high low breathing however missing the chuck factory can crank out one million individual items in a day and that's only half of what ved says is possible with the current setup we are still figuring out a lot of the technology by the time they reach consumers chuck products end up being about 20 percent more expensive than items made from plastic chuck's meal tray costs 10 rupees or 13 cents while a plastic tray costs around 8 rupees or 10 cents another reason chuck costs more ved insists on paying his staff a living wage i think we are very proud of having lots of local people more than that we are proud of having 50 women and they're amazing some women like shawwadi can make up to 10 000 rupees a month or 131 dollars that's nearly double the minimum wage in the state of uttar pradesh so far chuck hasn't turned a profit but the business continues to grow over 3 000 restaurants across india have used the company's tableware the pandemic was a major setback sales dropped by 70 percent if restaurants shut down we shut down so that's a challenge but we are trying to now change our model where we are also trying to go direct to customers so ved plans to set up an online store and make their products available in retail locations and he hopes to ramp up his business enough to support india's war on plastic starting in july the country will ban many plastic items including the kind of single-use food containers that chuck wants to replace so are products made from bagasse better for the environment probably chuck recommends leaving its products for 90 to 180 days in a backyard composting bin that maintains moisture and good oxygen flow but they can still harm the environment if they end up in a landfill where they won't decompose as fast plastic on the other hand never really goes away it just keeps breaking down into smaller and smaller particles ved is just one of many entrepreneurs around the world recycling waste into food containers and utensils lifepak in colombia makes compostable plates out of pineapple crowns in mexico bl fosse creates bioplastic cutlery out of avocado waste and in denmark a young innovator is making edible cutlery and bags out of potatoes and it will likely take all these companies and more to manage plastic waste now and into the future so i believe each of us can make a difference it's only a 70 year old challenge typically the plastics that we use the cheapest varieties last about 500 years so you can imagine that first bugger still has 430 years to go you.