Disposable tableware. History of invention and production

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HISTORY OF TECHNOLOGY, TECHNOLOGY, OBJECTS AROUND US
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Disposable tableware. History of invention and production

The history of technology, technology, objects around us

Directory / The history of technology, technology, objects around us

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In 1908, the American physician E. Davidson published a study on mortality among schoolchildren. He cited the use of unhygienic metal mugs as one of its reasons.

In the same year, a young law student, H. Moore, writing for the food manufacturers' newspaper The Packer, published an exposé about the unhygienic utensils used by railroad engineers and campaigned against the "community tin mug." Then Moore came up with the "safe cup", which was a sheet of cardboard twisted into a cone.

Moore showed his invention to the Chicago entrepreneur L. Luellen. Luellen immediately realized the promise of the undertaking and, in turn, improved it: the bottom of the cup appeared, and it acquired a rounded shape.

By 1910, Luellen had patented the invention and founded, in partnership with Moore, the Individual Drinking Cup Company. At the same time, the partners designed a vending machine for individual cups and installed it in public places and railway trains.

Disposable tableware
Advertising of paper mills

By 1960, $50 million worth of paper cups were being sold annually in America alone.

An increase in demand for disposable tableware was facilitated by the appearance in the middle of the XNUMXth century. supermarkets and fast food restaurants such as McDonald's.

In supermarkets, products began to be packaged in plastic for quick customer service. After using the product, the packaging is thrown away.

In order to prevent customers from needing cutlery, fast food restaurants sell soups in glasses that can be drunk instead of eaten with a spoon, frozen sandwiches that only need to be heated in the microwave before use and then removed from the packaging, etc. .

Disposable tableware

For the production of disposable tableware, various plastics began to be used. The most common material is polypropylene. It is resistant to temperatures up to 150 °C and is used for the manufacture of films in which frozen products are placed. They can be dipped in boiling water for heating directly in the film.

You can also select polystyrene, which is characterized by high strength, the ability to be painted in various colors and chemical inertness, if made without violating the technology. Polystyrene is used, for example, for the packaging of butter and margarine.

Polyethylene is used to make a film for storing cold products, various containers: bread bins, cups with saucers, etc. However, it is impossible to store butter or margarine in such a film for a long time because of its instability with respect to fats.

Containers for sunflower oil, mineral water and soft drinks are made from a relatively new material - polyethylene terephthalate. It is a very inert plastic that can withstand the carbon dioxide pressure of carbonated drinks. But it is impossible to store vegetable oil, water or alcoholic beverages in mineral water bottles, since oil and alcohol are much stronger solvents of oligomers than water, and harmful substances can pass from plastic to liquid.

According to experts, the consumption of plastic tableware in the world is up to 88,5 kg per person per year. Most of this utensils end up in landfills and decompose, polluting the environment.

Today, only a quarter of the polymer materials produced are made from biodegradable plastics. The main disadvantages of these materials are high cost, incomplete degradability, and the possibility of food products spoilage from premature decomposition of the package during its use.

The first biodegradable plastic, cellophane, was made in 1908. Cellophane's inherent biodegradability at the time precluded its use, and so it was replaced by longer-lasting plastics.

In the 70s, cellophane as a packaging material was completely abandoned, turning their attention to more technologically advanced starch. One of the new biodegradable materials that has successfully entered the market, "MaterBi", was patented in Italy in 1995. It is a mixture of corn starch, polyvinyl alcohol and polycaprolactone. From "MaterBi" get a variety of products: from bags to pens.

Disposable tableware
Disposable Devices MaterBi

"Starch" products can be designed for the required time of self-disintegration. Some types of bioplastics dissolve very quickly, others can last for months or even years. In Austrian and Swedish McDonald's restaurants - "starchy" forks and knives. But in the US and Ukraine, McDonald's continues to use cheap plastic utensils.

In addition to starch and cellulose, they are trying to use polysaccharides, pectin, rapeseed oil, which can be used to make a polymer resembling polyurethane and other materials, for the production of biodegradable plastics.

But the price of biodegradable plastics now largely depends on the degree of their demand in a particular area. Basically, these materials are used in medicine, for the manufacture of implants, medicinal capsules. In everyday life, most consumers are not inclined to overpay for a biodegradable food packaging bag.

Another direction in the development of non-polluting disposable tableware is edible tableware. Such dishes, for example, were developed for the Moscow Olympiad in 1980 at the catering department of the Leningrad Institute of Soviet Trade. It would help to get rid of washing equipment and dish cabinets.

The owner of the restaurant from the English city of Keyworth P. Piponidis also made the dishes in which visitors take food away edible. A box of potato flour is made using a technology similar to that used in the production of chips.

American food chemists have developed edible paper for wrapping sandwiches. It consists of a puree made from vegetables, fruits and berries and processed in a special way, which, once in the mouth, immediately dissolves. Outwardly, it resembles ordinary paper, ensures the tightness of products and can be used not only for packing sandwiches, but also for storing semi-finished products in the refrigerator.

Modern disposable tableware requires maximum processing and new production technologies, otherwise the Earth may drown in the packages left after the food eaten.

Author: Pristinsky V.L.

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