Every little bit helps if it’s biodegradable

THE ISSUE More island restaurants and food shops are using biodegradable containers for their take-out fare.

BEING nice to Mother Nature need not be a major investment in a renewable energy company, building a solar-powered home or driving a hybrid vehicle.

Small things, like trading energy-thirsty imported bottled water for tap in your own reusable container and declining both wooden chopsticks and plastic forks when buying a plate lunch you're going to eat at home, can eliminate a big load from tight landfills.

That's the outlook a few island food service companies are adopting with their use of biodegradable containers, bags and utensils distributed by a new business whose name is a good indication of its mission.

A green thumbs-up to Styrophobia, and to the restaurants that package their foods in products made of bagasse, a sugar cane fiber, and "bioplastic" made from cornstarch.

As Styrophobia's founder Krista Ruchaber told the Star-Bulletin's Nina Wu, making "small choices throughout the day to recycle, or better yet, reuse" can lift a considerable burden from the environment. But a large number of people need to make such choices for maximum benefit and while most people don't, the message going out can help.

For restaurants like Town and Downtown whose chef, Ed Kenney, is mindful of the environmental value of using local foods, spurning Styrofoam is in keeping with his agenda, even though biodegradable products cost a little more.

The product makes sense, particularly on Oahu where landfill space is short. Even though regular plastics are burned for electricity production, a lot of bags and bottles end up as litter on land and in the ocean. If they were biodegradable, they would do less harm.