(00:01):
Well, I'm in over my head. No one told me trying to keep my footprints small was harder than I thought it could be. I'm in over my head. What do I really need? Trying to save the planet, oh will someone please save me? Trying to save the planet, oh will someone please save me?

(00:24):
Welcome to In Over My Head. I'm Michael Bartz. So this is a new segment I'm calling The Little Things. On this show, we cover big ideas like AI and the cloud or decarbonization, which I really enjoy talking about, but I'm still curious about just those little everyday things that we do that have an impact, like which grocery bag do we take to the store or reading an ebook versus a paper book. Just little things. And so that's what this segment's about. My guest today is Shelie Miller. Shelly is a professor of sustainable systems at the University of Michigan's School for Environment and Sustainability. Professor Miller's research uses lifecycle assessment and scenario modelling to identify environmental problems of emerging products and systems. Her research group works on food, single-use plastic e-commerce, and the rural-urban sustainability divide. Professor Miller's work has been featured in Popular Science, the New York Times, the Washington Post Scientific American and More. Welcome t In Over My Head, Shelie.

(01:21):
It's great to be here. Thanks for the invitation.

(01:23):
So in this segment, I'm exploring the little things people can do to reduce their environmental impact and make more informed choices. A few years ago your team conducted a study on the environmental payback period of kitchenware products. This included straws, coffee cups, forks and sandwich bags. The study had some very interesting results, which I'm looking forward to discussing. Perhaps to start, you can give us maybe a brief overview of the study.

(01:43):
Yes. So one of the things our group is really interested in doing is understanding the environmental impacts of our stuff. All of the things that we surround ourselves with every day. And I think, you know, as many of us we're concerned about how to reduce our own personal environmental impacts and that's really the research my group does, is taking a really systematic view of environmental impacts of our products. And so the overall tool we use is called lifecycle assessment and it looks at products entire lives. So when they are extracted from the ground manufactured into products when we use them and when we dispose of them. And so we use this tool to try to get a very good systematic understanding of environmental impacts of products and often comparing one product to another to determine whether or not it's beneficial. You get into some really interesting questions when you start talking about single-use products versus reusable products because reusable products tend to be more durable, which means that we have to use a lot more materials and energy to manufacture them, which has a greater environmental impact than the single-use product.

(02:50):
But over time, hopefully we say it will pay off sort of those embedded costs of the materials and energy to make that durable product. And so what this study did was it looked at the environmental impacts of single-use products and compared those impacts to the environmental impacts of similar reusable items and tried to figure out how many times you would need to reuse a reusable item before it actually got to that environmental benefit point. And so if you're talking about single-use straws or single-use coffee cups, how many times do you have to reuse that reusable water bottle or your reusable coffee mug before it actually does have an environmental benefit over these single-use items?

(03:34):
Yeah, no, I know is, a super interesting study, so maybe we can kind of go through them one by one. So with the straws, so what kind of straws were you assessing?

(03:43):
So we looked at four different types of reusable straws compared to two different types of disposable straws. So we looked at both a plastic straw and a paper straw in terms of single-use items. And then we looked at bamboo, glass, metal and silicone as far as reusable straws and what could be potentially beneficial and how many times you would really need to reuse these reusable straws. It turns out that straws are one of those items that actually take a pretty long period of time to actually break even. So the single-use products tend to actually have pretty low environmental impacts per single-use product. And so in order to pay back all of that additional material and energy that's associated with making a metal straw, that can actually be pretty significant. And so just as an example, we look at a lot of different impact categories in the study we looked at three different impact categories. So climate change potential overall water consumption and energy use. And so all of those are going to have different payback periods depending on the item, whatever has the largest impact and the largest payback period is what we say, you have to use it that many times in order to break even. So with the actual straws themselves, if we took a metal straw versus a single-use plastic straw, that metal straw has to be reused 229 times before it actually has a similar environmental impact to using 229 plastic straws.

(05:10):
Yeah, I know I do have a metal straw and, and I've only used it a few times, it just sits in my drawer most of the time, so that's good to know. 200 plus times.

(05:17):
Yeah, exactly. I feel like a lot of times they're almost novelty gifts, right? Where people are shopping around and they're saying, Hey, there's someone who really cares about the environment in my life and I'm gonna get them reusable straws. Well, chances are if they already have reusable straws, this might not be the best product to invest in to reduce environmental

(05:33):
Impact. And like with the bamboo straw, was that any better or was it similar to the metal straw?

(05:38):
So bamboo was actually really interesting. So when you talk about bamboo straws and you compare them to single-use straws, they actually never get to a point where they're better than the actual single-use straws. And that's surprising to a lot of people. The reason for that is because bamboo straws aren't very durable and so, so they actually will basically degrade and not be useful as straws anymore after a certain number of uses. And so we never got to a point where the actual bamboo straw was better than the single-use straw because it would basically fall apart before it got to that point.

(06:12):
Oh for sure. I got one of the interesting parts of the studies, and we will come up again as we work through the list of things. So great to know. How about the coffee cups? What kind of coffee cups did you guys look at?

(06:22):
We sort of took the standard carry out coffee cup, right? So the sort of cardboard coffee cup with a single-use plastic topper to the coffee cup and we compared that to a very high-end metal insulated coffee cup, a reusable plastic coffee cup and a ceramic coffee mug. And the ceramic coffee mug really did perform the best. So for all of the impact categories we looked at, reusing the ceramic mug 32 times is the point at which it will be better than getting that takeout cardboard cup. And so, but that actually means something, right? So if you're thinking about giveaways, right, and you're saying, oh hey take a ceramic mug, you wanna make sure that it's a good enough ceramic mug that people will actually reuse it rather than just putting it in there cupboard and you know, having it with all their other ceramic mugs.

(07:11):
So if you are like looking at buying new ceramic mugs, just make sure you reuse them 32 times. The other categories we looked at, which are metal and reusable plastic did have higher overall environmental impacts and so required longer periods of time to break even. So in terms of energy use, the metal mug has to be reused 288 times before it breaks even. If you're just talking about climate impact though, it's about 112 uses. So that's about two years of weekly coffee cup use or if you're using it every day, you know, or five days a week, just making sure that you buy a metal coffee mug and reuse it basically throughout the entire year before you get another reusable mug. So those are the kinds of things to be thinking about as you're buying reusable items. Is this actually a reusable item that is going to be kinda not your forever mug, but one that you're really going to hold onto for a while rather than saying, eh, I'll buy this one and then hey, I'm at a store like a few months later and say, this one is really cute too. Really taking a second and saying this is a reusable item that I'm going to wanna have in my life for a while.

(08:21):
You also looked at forks. What did you find with the forks?

(08:24):
We did, yeah, so moving right along, we looked at so cutlery and, and really trying to say, all right, so there are, you know, the single-use plastic, you know, forks and knives and spoons. We used a fork but it's going to be the same more or less for other kitchenware products. And we compared that single-use plastic fork to a bamboo fork, a reusable plastic fork, and a metal fork. And so this is one of the products where the actual break-even point of the reusable items is actually pretty low. So for the most part these are single-digit reuses for all of the categories, particularly with reusable plastic and metal flatware. You're actually within sort of a five to 10 reuse range before it's actually better than a single-use product. This makes sense when you take a step back and think about the forks compared to some of the other products.

(09:18):
When you actually think about a disposable fork, there's actually a good bit of materials in that fork in order to have the performance of being a fork and holding up to whatever you are, you know, whether it's a salad or something more substantial that you're spearing, it actually has to have a good bit of plastic in order to have that strength associated with it. And so when you start talking about reusable plastic forks, they're really not that much different than single-use plastic forks. And in essence, you can reuse your single-use plastic forks as well and get similar environmental benefits. But again, if you're thinking about, you know, having like that or fork that you're gonna put in your backpack and reuse rather than taking a plastic fork where you go places at least five to 10 uses is a good rule of thumb.

(10:01):
Okay, perfect. That's really, really helpful. And then of course, last but not least, the sandwich bags. Tell me about that.

(10:08):
Yeah, so the sandwich bags are, are an interesting story that a lot of folks are fairly not always happy with these results. And I'll say our research group was not always happy with these results. So we compared a thin film plastic zip-top sandwich bag to both a beeswax wrap and as well as a silicone bag in terms of there's some very popular bags on the market that are silicone base that have that sort of sandwich packaging function. And what we found, in this case, is neither the beeswax wrap or the silicone bag ever broke even with the single-use plastic zip-top bag. And that is in many ways a very surprising result cuz you expect the reusable item to be better, at least after a certain number of uses. It is not saying at all that beeswax wrap or silicone bags have some sort of crazy environmental impact, their environmental impact is small, but the thing is, the actual zip-top plastic thin film bag has so little materials associated with it, so little materials associated with making that bag, the dishwashing emissions associated with the reusable items are actually greater than the thin film plastic itself.

(11:27):
And so you actually get to the point when you're dealing with these wax wrap or silicone bags compared to the single-use plastic.

(11:38):
Yeah, and that's something I found very surprising about your study, which I why I left it to the end. And so, so what you're saying is like I could just use a single-use zip-top disposable bag every time and it would be better than the silicone or the beeswax.

(11:53):
So on the basis of the three metrics that we looked at, which are climate change emissions, energy use, and water use, there are fewer environmental impacts associated with a single-use zip-top bag in those three categories than either the beeswax wrap or the silicone. And in fact, it is that there are fewer environmental impacts of that bag compared with the actual washing emissions of either of those reusable items. So this is something that we rarely think about in terms of environmental impacts these use phase emissions, what actually happens to heat up our water to run a dishwasher, what that looks like, and the soap that's actually used in washing dishes. And again, we're talking about very, very small environmental impacts compared to the rest of the environmental impacts of our lives. But these thin film, you know, plastics have so few environmental impacts associated just because you know, there's such little mass associated with how much plastic is actually there that actual washing emissions are greater than the actual single-use spec.

(12:55):
Yeah, no I think that's, that's super interesting and yeah, I mean it's, the segment is called the little things, so I wanna talk about those little things and I understand it doesn't have a, a huge, huge impact if you, you know, which types of bags you use, but I think yeah, people automatically have that assumption that single-use is bad and reusable is always better. So that's why I thought it was really, really interesting to talk to you. Yeah, I guess, and you've talked about that use phase and like hypothetically if someone lived in, let's say an off-grid tiny house that's powered by solar and they wash their dishes with cold water and then they reuse the water like in a garden or something, they recycle it. Would that change the impact of the reusable product?

(13:34):
Absolutely. So when you're actually talking about these environmental impacts and how we measure them, generally speaking, we're using nationwide averages and so you know, our study was done in the US so it's the US average, but you know, the Canadian average isn't going to be all that much different, but certainly individual results will vary. And so it will vary depending on whether you are heating your water with gas or electricity and if you're heating it with electricity, then what the actual grid is that you're plugging it into, is it highly renewable, is it highly coal based? What is the actual impact of heating up that water? And so if you are heating up your water source based on solar panels, then basically at least from the climate perspective, you're going to reduce those overall emissions in terms of greenhouse gas emissions associated with heating up water.

(14:25):
And so then you're going to have a point where it will break even. Right now we are in a situation where our grid is still evolving and you know, a lot of these sorts of day-to-day activities like dishwashing and clothes washing and various types of things that happen in our house actually do have an impact that we don't think about sometimes. And so if you're at the overall average or worse, you're going to certainly see the results of our study. If you're again in a tiny house with solar panels, yes you are probably better off using the reusable item.

(14:58):
Yeah, yeah, I know I've obviously not everyone lives in a tiny house, although I wish they did. So for your average person, let's say they have a dishwasher or they have just a handwash sink, which one has a lower impact?

(15:09):
This is an interesting part of the study. So I have a colleague, Greg Kean, who did a deep dive into dishwashing emissions and how to best wash your dishes. And it is generally speaking found that if you have a dishwasher and you fully load the dishwasher, that's going to have a lower environmental impact. Then the way most people hand wash dishes, which is usually leaving the tap running, if you have the most efficient hand washing method, which is the multi-bin method where you actually have a bin with the soapy water and then a bin with rinse water and you're using the same amount of dishes that will be in a full load that actually has a slight environmental benefit. But again, at this point we are talking about such small differences that it really goes to, there are probably other things you can do with your time than hand washing dishes unless that's something that you actually enjoy doing.

(16:03):
Yes, that's what I say, just everyone hand wash your dishes, stop doing other things, it keeps you at home, at least.

(16:08):
It does keep you at home and from doing other things. Yeah, that is true.

(16:11):
No, that, that's, that's a good point. One thing actually, I was just curious about, when you're talking about the washing of, of the various reusable items, we have those disposable zip-top bags and we actually reuse 'em quite a bit. We'll actually wash those out. So would that actually lower the impact of those items if you, if you actually reuse the disposable items as well?

(16:30):
Yeah, so that's actually a question that comes up a lot of like, okay, well you know, can I reuse these single-use items and then what actually happens if I start dishwashing these single-use items, does that actually make it better or worse? And you do kind of get into this Jenga effect of trying to figure out all of these different manifestations. And certainly, I think when we're talking about reusable items, one of the things that our study found is if you go multiple uses without washing the item, that's actually going to significantly reduce the payback period of that reusable item. And so for something like a reusable bag, if you're soaring something like pretzels in it, you probably don't have to reuse and rewash that item between every single use. You can probably just put more pretzels in it and not worry too much about any sort of gunk in there. But if you have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in that bag, chances are you're gonna wanna wash that out. And so the amount of times in the frequency that you wash items can certainly have an impact. And again, individual results will vary depending on where you are and you know, does it actually make sense to have washing emissions of a single-use item or is it better to toss it?

(17:43):
Yeah, no that's, that's a good point for sure. Cuz I think yeah that coffee cup ceramic mug's a good example. Yeah, I think a lot of people maybe have a coffee in the morning and then the afternoon but they don't wash it between cuz why would you? Yeah, I think that's a good point. You don't always have to wash your stuff,

(17:55):
Right? You know, cream gets into a different territory, cream and sugar, but a lot of times a simple rinse of the mug rather than going through a full cycle of wash can actually really help as well.

(18:05):
Absolutely. We've talked about it a bit in our conversation, but generally, so what advice do you have for people who want to reduce their impact when it comes to these kitchenware items?

(18:15):
So I think the big thing to think about is just reusing reusable items as much as you possibly can. There are so many really cool, pretty reusable items out there, but once you actually have one that you like, stick with it and reuse that as many times as you can to get the most environmental benefit off of that reusable item. And I guess the other thing is that while this is part of my research and while this is something that I care about and do these studies, remember that this is small stuff, this is smaller decisions in part of much larger environmental conversations. And so yes, we can reduce the environmental impact of our straws and our coffee cups and our sandwich wraps, but it's also important not to sweat the small stuff too much. And so it's very easy to get into decision fatigue about these decisions and tie yourself up and knots and well, should I be hand washing this at all?

(19:11):
Maybe I shouldn't be washing this at all and I lost my coffee cup. What am I gonna do? I think there's many of us who have that sort of guilt of these everyday choices and I think sometimes it's giving ourselves a little bit of grace and saying, yes, these things are interesting things to be talking about. They're part of much larger conversations. And so thinking about how things fit into your life and your lifestyle and life choices without getting too wrapped up into these things that ultimately do have small environmental impact in the scheme of things is important to remember.

(19:44):
Great. Yeah. Well, Shelie, this has been fascinating. I know we don't wanna sweat the small stuff, but this is called the Little Things, so I'm glad that we could discuss this and I really appreciate you informing me on kitchenware. I feel better now.

(19:55):
Well great. Thanks so much for having me on.

(19:57):
Well, that was my chat with Professor Miller. The biggest takeaway from me was those reusable items that never reach the breakeven point and ultimately it's about buying fewer things and making them last. Well, that's all for me. I'm Michael Barts. Here's a feeling a little less in over our heads when it comes to saving the planet. We'll see you again soon. In Over My Head was produced and hosted by Michael Bartz in partnership with Environment Lethbridge. Original Music by Gabriel Thaine. If you would like to get in touch, email info@inmyheadpodcast.com.

(20:26):
I'm trying to save the planet oh will someone please save me?