This Jamaican start-up uses bamboo and coconut shells to replace straws and plastic utensils

    A Jamaican start-up shows how bamboo can replace the plastic pollutant in the creation of single-use products

    He is about to end up run over, his mother saves him

    A Jamaican start-up shows how bamboo and coconut shells can replace the plastic pollutant in the creation of disposable products such as straws and kitchen utensils.





    BAMBUSA has already replaced over 5 million plastic straws with a sustainable bamboo version and is now transforming the island's discarded coconut shells into sustainable cooking utensils.

    Bambusa, this is the (evocative) name of the brand, has already replaced five million plastic straws with an ecological version in bamboo that would have ended up on the beaches or in the sea, damaging the marine ecosystem. Now he's turning hollowed out coconut shells into carbon neutral kitchen products. Founded in November 2017, the start-up has quickly become the main producer of bamboo products on the island, with a thriving channel also abroad: about 80% of Bambusa products are sold in Jamaica, while the the remaining 20% ​​is exported, mostly to Canada and the United States.

    More than eight million tons of plastic are dumped into our oceans every year - an environmental catastrophe that undermines the survival of countless animal species such as fish, crustaceans and turtles. Jamaica alone produces 800.000 tons of waste annually, 15% of which is made up of plastic.

    This Jamaican start-up uses bamboo and coconut shells to replace straws and plastic utensils

    While awareness of the damage inflicted on the environment by the consumption of plastic products is growing, even in Jamaica, the demand for this material is always very high, as the alternatives currently on the market had too high costs. . Bamboo is an excellent substitute for this material: it is a fast growing plant, absorbing large amounts of CO2 from the atmosphere, it is cheap and degrades in the environment in a couple of years - remember that, on the other hand, a straw made of plastic takes 200 years to decompose in the environment.

    In addition, the island's government has started a process to ban single-use plastics as early as 2019, which is expected to end this year. Without this ban, the consumption of bamboo alternatives would not have grown so dramatically. But banning plastic is not enough for the problem to be solved - there is a need for state incentives to help ecological start-ups, such as Bambusa, to grow in the area and make their products affordable to as many people as possible.



    After the success of bamboo straws, the start-up did not stop but continued to replace plastic products with more sustainable alternatives. However, the pandemic crisis due to the spread of Coronavirus caused an important setback to the entire Jamaican economy (think of the paralysis of the tourism world): if before the pandemic 98% of the company's sales were represented by bamboo straws, by the end of 2020 the number had dropped dramatically to 5%.

    But the company did not stop, on the contrary - it took advantage of the stall period to experiment with new materials for new products: hence the shells of the coconuts, usually thrown away as waste or burned as fuel (releasing methane into the environment and carbon dioxide), become a useful material for making kitchen utensils.

    This Jamaican start-up uses bamboo and coconut shells to replace straws and plastic utensils

    @ bambusajamaica.com


    This Jamaican start-up uses bamboo and coconut shells to replace straws and plastic utensils

    @ bambusajamaica.com


    Fonte: United Nation Conference on Trade / Bambusa Jamaica

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