Did you also think that kulhads (earthen cups) are more eco-friendly since they are supposed to be biodegradable? Well, we thought so too. However, years of research has taught us that biodegradability is not the only factor to be considered when understanding if something is eco-friendly.
Recently, Union Railway Minister Piyush Goyal announced that tea will be sold in kulhads across all railway stations in India instead of plastic cups in order to contribute to the government’s plastic-free India initiative. Additionally, he said that it will also help to boost the pottery industry and support small artisans. Currently, tea is served in kulhads at 400 railway stations across the country. While this seems to be a great solution, sadly it might not be the case. Although we do not have the exact estimation of the carbon footprint of making a kulhad, it could be fairly high – it includes emissions from fuel burned in transporting clay as well as transporting the finished goods, emissions from the baking process, electricity used for running modern pottery machines, etc.
Brick kilns are the largest industrial users of coal in India after thermal power plants and the iron and steel industry. The sector consumes around 35-40 million tonnes of coal per year and produces one third of the carbon emissions from the industrial sector. However, despite the huge scale, it still remains one of the most unorganized & informal sector in India. Kulhads, too, are baked in such furnaces.
Moreover, the type of soil required to make earthenware is supposed to be among the most fertile types of soil. When these earthen cups are baked in furnaces, the organic carbon content that makes the soil fertile gets removed. Thus, if these kulhads do end up in the soil, the overall quality of the soil is still degraded. Secondly, clay extraction makes the sites unfit for agriculture after they are mined and abandoned.
Read: Teabags Contain Plastic in Them – Wait, What?
If we consider this and the decision to make kulhads mandatory at railway stations, here’s what it can look like – the Indian Railways is estimated to have over 23 million daily passengers. Even if a third of these passengers opt for the kulhad wali chai, roughly 117 tonnes of fertile soil will be displaced and degraded on a daily basis. Kulhads though biodegradable, they still can take decades to fully degrade into the soil. This is because kulhads are fired and exposed to temperatures of 150 degrees centigrade to make them stronger. This also makes them non-recyclable in the sense that they cannot be re-moulded into fresh kulhads.
If we really consider all these parameters, the idea to make kulhads mandatory at railway station doesn’t seem as green as it is being portrayed, does it? Kulhads definitely were a viable option in the olden days when the population was low and the clay was available in abundance. With the ever-growing population and rapid urbanization, that is not the case today. The point is – it is important to really understand and analyze the impact of any change before labelling it as green just because it appears to be. The least evil solution would be to introduce a material that can be reused to reduce the trash generated – single use items, be it paper, plastic or even clay cannot be possibly sustainable.
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