sustainable product

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Sustainable Product
Plastic pollution has been a widespread problem worldwide. Of all the plastics produced each year, only 27% of them are recycled. The rest is dumped in the landfills where they take up to 1000 years for decomposition to take place. Statistics also show that over a million birds of the sea and approximately 100,000 marine mammals are found dead every year due to pollution of plastics in the oceans (Curran 478). The US Centers for Disease Control did a study and found out that almost 93% of people were positive for Bisphenol A. This is a potentially harmful chemical that is a component of plastic products. These products can be replaced by eco-friendly products which can virtually eliminate pollution in an area (Manzini et al. 851).
Examples of such products include recycled paper towels, napkins, diapers, organic cotton female hygiene products, grocery and trash bags, which are goods that we use every day in our lives. The raw materials for these products will be purely organic, for example, cotton, banana fiber, and card boxes which will be used for packaging. These materials are widely available and decompose with ease because they are composed of low carbon footprint (Ljungberg 466). They undergo very little processing since they require less energy to manufacture. This leads to energy conservation and reduces production cost for companies. The waste products produced from the manufacturing process will be reduced through remanufacturing, reusing, and recycling.

The sustainability of these products can be attained by replacement of the plastic goods with such eco-friendly merchandise (Maxwell et al. 390).
These eco-friendly products are not only environmentally friendly, but they are also sustainable. Also in comparison with the plastic products, they are cheaper for the user and also safe for human consumption (Larsen 7).
Works Cited
Curran, Mary Ann, ed. Life cycle assessment handbook: a guide for environmentally sustainable products. John Wiley & Sons, 2012: 455-480
Larsen, Andrea. Sustainability, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, (University of Minnesota, 2011). ISBN 13:978-1-4533141-2-8 http://www.oercommons.org/courses/sustainability-innovation-and-entrepreneurship/view
Ljungberg, Lennart Y. “Materials selection and design for development of sustainable products.” Materials & Design28.2 (2007): 466-479.
Manzini, Ezio, and Carlo Vezzoli. “A strategic design approach to develop sustainable product service systems: examples taken from the ‘environmentally friendly innovation’Italian prize.” Journal of cleaner production 11.8 (2003): 851-857.
Maxwell, Dorothy, and Rita Van der Vorst. “Developing sustainable products and services.” Journal of Cleaner Production 11.8 (2003): 883-895.