Long time no blog etc. Have been away in Sunny Chicago attending the NRA meeting (National Restaurant Association, not the gun club) where I was looking for new products to bring to Blighty to sell on the Event Supplies Website.

Not much to report yet, lots of companies selling PLA paper cups and plastic tumblers (they have the spare fields in the USA to grow the crops, we don’t have the space the turn land over to corn/PLA production…but I have said enough on that subject in previous blogs)

We did find a Chinet type range of paper plates and bowls which are microwavable, ovenable, freezable, sturdy and biodegradable!

Waiting on prices and import costs to see if this product is feasible for the UK market, more info soon!

We will be very shortly finding space on the website for our new range of CE Marked Katerglass Plastic Glasses in 22oz and 12oz sizes. The cost will only be £5 per 1000 more than we currently charge for the standard Katerglass tumblers (many companies charge a far higher premium for CE marking their products)

More info on the cost savings found by using these Plastic Glasses

can be found in an old blog 'becoming-free-from-metered-pumps'.

 We have started to notice even more supposedly 'green' catering disposable products appearing on the market - notably PLA lined paper cups which are all ‘derived from natural sustainable resources’.

Many companies play on peoples’ consciences to buy these products but many do not see the big picture, that some of these products can create more waste and do more harm than good.

Putting aside the puzzling fact that parts of the world are felling trees to create space to grow corn crops to meet our demand for low CO2 produced products (who thought that one up?, -  we need the trees to convert the CO2 into oxygen!) using PLA lined paper cups can reduce the amount we recycle!

I will elaborate.

PLA lined paper cups will separate when decomposing leaving a paper ‘mulch’ and the PLA lining.

99.9% of all paper cups used at the moment are not biodegradable due to the oil based poly lining on the inside which prevent liquids seeping into the paper walls. However these cups can be recycled into some other product.

As I have stated in previous blogs, adding this new kind of paper cup with PLA lining into the ‘mix’, however noble the intentions, will create more waste than previously created with the oil based poly lined paper cups.

If one of these PLA cups is put into a batch of ‘normal’ paper cups

for recycling (and you cannot visibly tell the difference)  the PLA will react with the oil based poly lined materials and ruin the whole batch of paper, making it completely non recyclable!

So my advice is to question any company that states products they sell are helping the environment, and ask them if they have thought about what was removed from the land to create the space for their corn crops etc and how the product they produce or market is disposed of.

What percentage of people do you think actually take their PLA cups home and compost them? Could you even tell if you were handed a PLA cup? I doubt most people outside the industry would know.

*PLA paper or plastic cups will not biodegrade in landfill

*There is only one dedicated recycling company in the UK which will collect waste paper cups, and they will not touch PLA lined paper cups.

*We have spent years giving farm subsidies to farmers in Africa to help them create crops and stand on their own two feet, now we are mass producing those same crops for fuel and alternatives to plastics, lowering the price as a result, and plunging these people back into poverty.

We offer two types of Wipeable table cloths, Plastic Table Cloths

and wipeable 'Silk' Table cloths.

Both these products are used to protect table linens from stains and are increasingly used at Childrens parties as they allow for spillages.

The ‘Silk’ tablecloths are made of tissue Napkin material which is laminated with plastic on one side making the product water resistant.

As the Silk product is manufactured from tissue material the thin plastic laminate does not impair the products drapeability (I may have just invented a new word there…)

Plastic Table Cloths are inherently waterproof and are made as thinly as possible to enable them to drape over the sides of a table. The plastic table cloths are tear resistant and difficult to damage however creases and folds in the product are more apparent than the silk product.

The creases on the Silk tablecovers once layed on a table are much less apparent and offer a more sophisticated dining experience.

We are often asked why we stock both types of product and would offer the explanation that the plastic tablecovers are more suited for use with adults and in restaurants and that plastic tablecloths suit kids parties better (the plastic tablecloths are a much cheaper option too)

Why don’t you sell foam cups you ask?

We don’t sell foam cups (EPS – expanded polystyrene) for a couple of reasons. These EPS cups are very bulky, on a standard pallet we can fit roughly 5000 foam cups compared with 72,000 Paper Cups!

The product does not stack/nestle inside each other very well and the box they are contained in is mostly full of fresh air!

It costs the same amount of money and uses up the same amount of fuel to move a box containing fresh air as it does one containing paper cups. Ever increasing transport costs will soon spell the end of these products.

Another problem with foam cups is that they will not (ever) decompose and they break up into nice throat blocking sized pieces when discarded. Unfortunately these small foam pieces look like attractive foodstuffs to many small animals L

Paper Cups, although most do have a plastic laminate on the inside to keep liquids from soaking into the paper will not do this, and will eventually break down although the time taken to do so can be great.

Now all aboard the Anya Hindmarch bandwagon…

I have seen on a couple of websites ceramic ‘I am not a paper cup’

cups for use in coffee shops instead of paper cups, marketed on the idea that these cups are ‘greener’.

Now I have blogged quite a bit about green issues and there are lots of them when you work in the catering disposables ‘single use’ industry.

I will say this however, I doubt that once these products  are shipped in their plastic individually boxed containers to your door that any benefits gained in their supposed repeated use is lost when you consider that 1000 paper cups could have been moved using the same amount of energy/fuel. The energy used to create these cups is massive too.

You'd have to use the ceramic cup 640 times before it would equal a polystyrene cup and 294 times to equal a paper cup.

Personally I believe Coffee is sold in Starbucks et al because it is convenient, not because the coffee is any better than we drink at home.

If you are going to bring with you a ceramic cup to Starbucks you may as well go the whole hog and take a flask with coffee in it instead and not bother!

Wallet-Check, Watch-Check, Keys-Check, Mug?- afraid so.

Our Coffee Paper Cups (or hot drink paper cups - you can use them for any drink!) are made from 350gsm paper board, plenty thick enough not to burn your fingers when drinking from them.

We also stock paper cup sleeves or coffee clutches as they are also known. These ‘hot cup jackets’ (I could go on, there are many descriptions for this product) are available for use with any make of paper cups.

These Hot Cup Jackets (see another description) can be printed on and we are now seeing a large number of special prints on these products even though they do not necessarily need to be used to protect fingers and thumbs from burning.

The idea behind this move is that advertisers can print their message on the sleeves and use a plain paper cup instead of a specially printed one saving them money.

The sleeves are £33 for 2000 and printing on them is cheap compared with the cost of printing a paper cup. Using a coffee clutch also removes the need to stock as many special printed paper cups, usually the minimum ‘run’ for printing a special design on a paper cup is 50,000 (25 bulky paper cup boxes), the same is true for the sleeves however the boxes are much smaller and need much less storage space.

Double wall paper cups and Ripple cups are a relatively new phenomenon, these cups have the paper sleeves already attached to the cup and are the most upmarket (and expensive) type of paper cups available. These paper cups can also be custom printed.

We are being asked what one piece injection moulded Wineglasses and Champagne Glasses means? It means simply that the product is in-one-piece (not in two parts!)

Many of the disposable plastic Champagne Glasses and Plastic Wineglasses on the market at the moment come in two parts which you need to assemble before use. Usually the base of the product needs attaching to the top – as below.

We have resisted calls from some quarters to start offering these products as they are just awful to use, they maybe a little cheaper as there is less packaging required and more of them can be put into a box, but at the end of the day, they are for drinking Champagne from and you want to look the part!

I have witnessed the bases falling off the bottom of these products, resulting in very embarrassed drinkers realizing it is all too obvious that they are drinking from plastic disposable Champagne flutes instead of the real thing.

Many of the times I have used these products I find the base will not fit properly and the Champagne Flute is ‘wonky’ or ‘unputdownable’ as the base has dropped off somewhere!

Our Plastic Champagne Flutes are an economical £25.30/100 (25p each) and are a much more up-market product than their two piece cousins…

Many bars and pubs across Britain are being urged by the police and HNS to introduce plastic, shattter proof glasses in a bid to improve safety and reduce the risk of injury from broken glass.

A typical "glassing" incident costs the NHS about £184,000 and uses 40 staff.

Recently eight city centre pubs and clubs in Durham have agreed to stock polycarbonate tumblers and in Bournemouth, after 25 night spots switched to polycarbonate glasses and bottles, police recorded 70% less glass-related injuries.

The government has provided nearly £9,000 towards the scheme with the city council contributing £3,000.

It is believed to be the first time such a wide-ranging trial has taken place in the North East after success in other locations in the UK.
The experiment will be headed by police and the city council.

Ch Supt Trevor Watson, of Durham Police, said: "Broken glasses, on the rare occasions they are used as weapons, can inflict horrendous injuries.
"The latest initiative will not stop such violent confrontations among drinkers but we believe it will reduce levels of injury."

Durham City Council leader Councillor Fraser Reynolds added: "It is excellent news that so many of our most popular venues are happy to trial this new glassware. "This is a major step forward in our commitment to make Durham even safer."

Polycarbonate tumblers are generally more costly than normal glassware but as they do not break they do not need to be replaced as frequently. Most polycarbonate glasses will withstand 500 cycles in a dish washer without showing any signs of wear and tear.

Bars and clubs will soon be able to purchase disposable CE marked tumblers from Event Supplies.

Previously plastic glasses were not accepted by weights and measures as you could alter the volume by squeezing the tumblers and therefore reducing the capacity.

European laws have now been relaxed so that suitably rigid plastic glasses can now be stamped with the CE Mark.These products give many advantages to licensed bar operators, the main being that these tumblers can be used with free flow pumps.

The metered pumps currently used by operators without CE marked tumblers are more expensive to purchase than free flow, are slower than free flow and are required to be inspected by weights and measures.

The introduction of these products will speed up the time needed to serve a customer, reduce overall costs and eliminate visits by weights and measures to inspect the metered pumps!

Happy Easter! Event Supplies has been listed on the following websites, where more information about us can be found.

http://www.clickmybrick.com/details.php?id=106536

http://www.clickmybrick.com/index.php?q=catering

http://www.caterer-directory.com/gb-company-317538817.html

http://www.eaproject.com/detail.php?id=2519

http://www.kellysearch.co.uk/gb-company-317538817.html

http://www.newsmedianews.com/list1.shtml

http://www.hotfroguk.co.uk/Companies/Event-Supplies

http://www.splut.com/010/016-15.htm

http://www.pegasusdirectory.com/tagclouds/disposable/

http://www.caterer-directory.com/gb-company-317538817.html

http://www.recycledproducts.org.uk/view/endproduct.cfm?saleable_id=11564

We are about to reach the summer and for Event Supplies the number one product for us will soon become Plastic Pint and Half Pint Tumblers

Our Katerglass range of plastic tumblers are market leaders in terms of quality and ease of handling.

The Katerglass range of products are the only injection moulded disposable plastic tumblers on the market, they feature rolled rims (so there are no sharp edges on your lip whilst drinking) and are strong yet flexible.

Injection moulding the Katerglass products gives them uniform wall strength unlike other vacuum formed disposable tumblers on the market.

Vacuum forming basically means pulling a heated piece of plastic over a pint glass shaped mould in order to create your tumbler.

This process is common in the production of plastic tumblers as it is quick, inexpensive to set up and allows for use of very little plastic in the manufacturing process. It also produces some of the most difficult to handle products. You will find these types of tumblers have the majority of the plastic at the bottom of the tumbler and the top.

This occurs as the plastic is stretched over the mould and the plastic that makes up the middle of the tumbler is where the product is at its thinnest (Unfortunately this is also where people hold their glasses – in the middle)

Once filled many of these products become ‘wobbly’ and the use of such is akin to drinking from a water balloon, invariably half of your drink is spilled over your hands as the tumblers are so soft in the middle and the slightest squeeze sends your drink over the top of the glass or you have to use 2-3 glasses in order to create a sturdy enough vessel.

So order your Katerglass Injection moulded disposable plastic tumblers

today in good time for the summer rush!