Non-plastic utensil firms show off their products
Companies supplying alternatives to plastic cutlery on Thursday demonstrated how their products fare, with one showing how to put its straw into a sealed drink and another attempting to cut a steak with its knife and fork.  The Environmental Protection Department has launched an online platform to help people and businesses find suppliers. The platform invited four suppliers to demonstrate their products to the press. One of them, Ecoinno, poured boiling water inside a container to prove it can tolerate high temperatures.  Its CEO, George Chen, said business has gone up by 70 percent since the disposable utensil ban took effect on Monday.  “So rules and regulations are extremely important, and we believe the windows are here. So it depends on when customers want to pick things up. It's no more to replace,” he said. “The new product will allow [restaurants] to stay away from just price competition because [the non-plastic products] are sustainable.”  Chen said his containers contain leak-proof materials and are 10 percent more expensive than other plastic alternatives on the market. But he said despite this, many hotels, hospitals and schools have been placing orders because they like the high quality.  “What are the values that they can get on it besides turnover? So this is what we are talking about. Can it, for example, be reheated? You see.. after [being heated] by 100 degrees water, it stays exactly the way that it is,” he said.  Another supplier, Supply Ching Company, demonstrated how to scoop up a portion of sticky rice with its spoon. Its founder, Alvis Yip, said his company will advise restaurants how to pick between the two types of spoon it offers.    “We have two kinds of spoon in the market now. We have the rice spoon and the soup spoon. The rice spoon is specially designed for rice because it has a straight lined design. So the [spoons] can go directly into the rice, but the soup spoon is actually designed for just holding the soup and the noodles. So to use it as a rice spoon, it will be a bit soft and weak,” he said. “Usually when the restaurant approaches us, we will gather the information of what kind of product they sell. So we will suggest the suitable cutlery for them.”  Another supplier demonstrated how its knife and fork can be used to cut steak. The fork snapped during two attempts.  The supplier explained that the forks are designed with detachable handles, saying this makes them weaker and more prone to breakage once the handles have been detached multiple times.