Colorado professor on mission to do away with disposable swag

Jul 19, 2023

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DENVER — We toss our used plastics in the recycle bin and think we've done a good thing, but Sonali Diddi will tell you that's not enough.

"Every plastic thing which we pick up is going to end up in our waterways and oceans... land and in our food," said Diddi, an associate professor in the Department of Design and Merchandising at Colorado State University.

The best thing we can do to help our planet is to not pick up that plastic in the first place, and one place to start is with all that free swag. Yes. It is tempting to grab, but so bad for our environment.

"It's not going through stringent quality control, which is harmful for human ... animal and environmental health," Diddi said.

Let's be honest, most of us are tempted by that free bag or lanyard or new water bottle. It's free, why not just grab it?

Here's why: "Swag industries is ... upwards of a $25 billion industry, and estimates show that about 40% of this gets into waste and into the landfills," said Diddi, who has long studied the dilemma of waste in the merchandising industry.

"Just to give you an example, in the U.S. alone, we put 11 million tons of textile and clothing waste in the landfill every year," she said.

Diddi is launching an effort to do away with stuff we don't really need, and that includes all that conference swag. At the very least, she said she hopes to replace it.

"For example, I am attending a conference and a workshop here in Denver, and the way they changed it ... instead of using a plastic lanyard, they have used a beaded lanyard," she said.

While we might each think we alone can't make much of a difference, Diddi said she disagrees.

She said as long we we make the conscious choice to avoid disposable plastics, reduce our use of them, and simply re-use the items we have, we can make a difference.

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