(AFP via Getty Images)
In a major transfer in direction of lowering plastic waste, tea in any respect 7,000 railway stations throughout India will now be offered in conventional earthenware cups, popularly often called kulhads.
The clay teacups are biodegradable, not like plastic, stated the railways minister Piyush Goyal as he introduced the transfer as a part of the federal government’s purpose of constructing India free from single-use plastic.
“Tea is given in kulhads at almost 400 railway stations within the nation right this moment, and in future, it’s our planning that tea shall be offered solely in kulhads in any respect the railway stations within the nation. This would be the contribution of the railways in direction of a plastic-free India,” native wire company Press Trust of India quoted Mr Goyal as saying.
“Kulhads won’t solely assist cut back using poisonous plastic and save the setting, however they may also give employment and earnings to a whole lot of hundreds of potters,” he added.
The clay cups, a humble relic from India’s previous, are thought-about inherently hygienic as a result of they’re made by firing the formed clay in extraordinarily excessive temperatures in a kiln.
The concept is hardly a brand new one, although. A number of earlier railways ministers have additionally proposed changing plastic cups with conventional kulhads. In 2004, then-railway minister Lalu Prasad had issued an order to start out serving scorching drinks in kulhads to spice up potters’ earnings and change to a “greener” different.
And regardless of its biodegradable nature, the eco-friendliness of the clay cups is beneath dispute. An article published on Indian information web site The Print argues that the carbon footprint concerned in making a clay cup will not be insignificant.
Indraneel Ghosh, a scientist engaged on soil safety at Germany’s Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH (GIZ), a global growth company, instructed the information portal that to calculate the carbon footprint, one has to take into consideration the emissions from the baking course of. Brick kilns are the most important customers of coal in India after thermal energy crops and the iron and metal business. They produce a 3rd of the carbon emissions from the commercial sector.
Although there are not any estimates on carbon footprint in making a clay cup, producing one kilogram of bricks in India is estimated to provide about 195 grams of carbon in greenhouse gases, in accordance with the report. The equal carbon footprint to provide a kilogram of single-use plastics is about 6 kg, although there are various extra cups per kilogram of plastic in comparison with clay.
The identical report additionally highlighted that the extreme use of kulhads could add to the degradation of soil high quality, for the reason that cups are produced from probably the most fertile forms of soil.
“About one kilogram of clay is required to make as much as 60 small kulhads,” Dr Shankar Ram, an assistant discipline officer within the Soil and Land Use Survey of India stated.
With about 23 million each day passengers, even when a 3rd of them sip tea in clay cups, 117 tonnes of fertile soil shall be displaced and degraded every day.