It is called Polystyrene. Sounds familiar? Yes, it is typically white in color, comes in the forms of disposable coffee cups and packaging material, and are made of expanded polystyrene beads.
It seems to be highly convenient to use them and throw them away right after you are done with your take-out food or coffee and tea but do you know that polystyrene beads are actually loose molecules that break off easily, meaning as your plastic spoon scratches the surface of your polystyrene rice box, molecules of polystyrene beads come off and stick to your spoon. So, you eat them along with your rice or noodles and whatever other stuff that goes in your mouth. And no, human cannot digest plastics, they stay in your body until you die, and decompose so much later than your corpse does. Fantastic, isn't it?
Polystyrene that survives from your lunch which is then discarded does not biodegrade and is resistance to photolysis. It floats on water and blows in the wind. In other words, you drink them and breathe them in. Other than that, they are a major part of marine debris, meaning fishes, prawns and crabs which do not know better, eat them and we eat the seafood. Yum.
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What I'm trying to say here is that it's not cool to hold a cuppa drink or a plate of food in polystyrene anymore. It grosses people off that you are contributing to the murder of mother earth and somehow, yourself, being a part of this world. Do your part, bring your own cup for coffee and reusable food containers for take out food. Think green. Not polystyrene.
Hugging a tree,
Eva
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