The market for disposable plastic cups and tumblers is under pressure from an increasingly environmentally aware public to supply more biodegradable product, but this increase in demand cannot be met.
The range of products which could be made from biodegradable material is huge - a glance at our website http://www.eventsupplies.co.uk offers an idea of the comprehensive range of sizes and qualities of cups, glasses, food packaging and utensils available.
 
Biodegradable PLA (Polylactic acid) material, typically made from corn starch, is already in short supply. It will never be available in sufficient quantity to replace oil-derived plastics without creating serious food shortages as more agriculture is turned over to corn starch production.
It is also currently more expensive than oil-based alternatives, just how Green is it?
 
People need to be educated about the different types of plastic materials. Take the Glastonbury festival as an example. Michael Eavis (founder and host) had the idea to only allow drinks to be served in PLA tumblers which are biodegradable.
 
This could only be enforced upon the burger vans & bars who were paying to be on site, and not the general population visiting. Herein lies the problem.
 
The PLA disposable glasses brought in by the burger vans et al are only biodegradable if they are composted separately (at best a single PLA glass will degrade in 6 weeks if surrounded by nice warm compost, a one tonne block of tumblers will take years!)
 
It only takes one festival attendee to bring in a plastic bottle of Coke and put it in the wrong bin and you have much less possibility of the goods either being recycled or biodegrading.
 
The new PLA tumblers can have an adverse effect when normal household recycling is considered too. Most of your plastic goods at home are Polypropylene or Polystyrene, which are both fully recyclable, but a single PLA pint tumbler thrown into the mix will contaminate the whole lot! 
Polypropylene and polystyrene plastics are oil based products, PLA is starch based and they dont mix well!
 
Another point to consider is that the affluent West has been doing its bit to help farmers in third world countries stand on their own two feet and not rely on charity to get by. We have encouraged farmers to develop fields of Corn. Now we are mass producing Corn to make plastics and Bio Fuels to feed our big hungry cars and thus we are taking away what little livelihood these farmers have created for themselves.
 
Hmm, what to do?
- What is the eco-friendly, environmentally sound solution?
 
I would say don't change it if it isn't broken, if the local councils are actually recycling the bottles we all put out for collection fortnightly (if you are lucky) then we are doing something that works.
It is unlikely that the council would be paying these guys to sort our rubbish if the job wasn't done properly.
There are already established schemes for recycling polystyrene cups and tumblers
(eg Save a Cup ) where used cups are collected and recycled into various new products
 
The only other suggestion I have is to only use one kind of plastic as Mr Eavis suggested for his Glastonbury festival. I just think he chose the wrong one, if he had left well alone, the festival would have had only recyclable oil based plastics on site, and the same can be said for the rest of the country.
 
Innocent - the smoothie drinks maker - recently decided to introduce 100% recycled rPET (polyethylene teraphthalate) bottles for its new 'Breakfast Thickie' smoothie rather than PLA bottles, on the basis that recycled PET may be better for the environment.
 
Based on the above I'd have to agree.