A Brief History of Single-Use Products
A good intention can pave a plastic road to hell.
Do you know the history of single-use products? No? Although this practice has become universal in the 21st century, it is actually relatively recent. It emerged at the crossroads of scientific and technological progress, hygiene requirements, and changing social habits.
“The virus consists of a microscopic parasite that can easily be multiplied by cultivation outside the bodies of the animals that may be affected by the disease.” — Louis Pasteur, Proceedings of the French Academy of Sciences (1880)
In 1864, Louis Pasteur confirmed through an experiment on fermentation that microorganisms were responsible for disease. From then on, hygiene advocates began criticising a practice that was widespread on trains, in school playgrounds and in other public places: the use of a communal dipper to drink from shared water containers.
In 1907, Dr Crumbine of Kansas was walking down the street with one of his tuberculosis patients when he saw him drink using one of these public utensils. A few seconds later, he noticed a young girl using the same dipper to drink from the same water container. Alarmed by this risky behaviour, he became a strong campaigner against the use of communal drinking utensils. Five years later, public dippers had been banned in half of the American states.
The first alternative to this unhealthy practice appeared on trains. In 1907, Dixie Cup, a young Boston-based company, introduced a refrigerated drinking fountain equipped with a dispenser containing wax-coated paper cups.
The practice spread rapidly along railway lines and then beyond them following the widespread prohibition of public dippers. The law still allowed properly cleaned reusable containers, but people naturally tend to choose the easiest option. Faced with tedious cleaning procedures, the choice was quickly made. Can you imagine washing dishes on a train?
Cup manufacturers soon realised that customers saw other advantages in disposable cups: no need to wash, dry or stack them. But above all, single-use products meant one thing for manufacturers: sales skyrocketed.
With the rise of the petrochemical industry in the 1960s, paper was increasingly replaced by polymers manufactured from by-products of the oil industry.
While the plastic cup became one of the leading symbols of single-use products, it was soon joined by a whole range of packaging and hygiene-related items: cotton buds, straws, food packaging, bags and many more.
Today, advances in material science have made single-use products so widespread that they are now just as present in our homes and offices as they are in our oceans and forests.
Originally designed at the beginning of the century to save lives, single-use products have gradually become a source of environmental destruction, contaminating every corner of the planet.
So now, what if we simply washed the dipper?
