00:00These little clay vessels might be the oldest disposable cups in the world.
00:16Evidence of their use in the Indian subcontinent goes back
00:195,000 years. That's the end of the Stone Age.
00:25Traditionally, they're meant to be sipped from and tossed out.
00:30The cups are called koolhads or koolhars or ba or shikora, depending on who you ask.
00:38Whatever you call them, the convenient cups have nearly always been the preferred vessel
00:43for tea shops throughout the region. Enter single-use plastic and paper.
00:49Today, more and more tea shops are giving up their traditional koolhad
00:53in favor of alternatives, which means less income for koolhad craftsmen.
01:00Even if we work, our stomachs won't be able to take it.
01:03We won't be able to take care of our families either.
01:06Cheaper prices make plastic and paper appealing to businesses that can end up going through
01:11thousands of cups a day. But proponents of the koolhad say that plastic is bad for your health,
01:17bad for the environment, and bad for business. The reality is a bit more nuanced than that.
01:24Is the simple koolhad really better than a plastic cup? And how long will it stick around?
01:31We went to Calcutta, India to see how traditional clay teacups still stand
01:36despite the rise of paper and plastic.
01:43Jayaprakash Prajapati's workday lasts longer than the sun's.
01:47From 4 a.m. to 10 p.m., he and his family make about 2,500 koolhads each day.
01:59He estimates he's made over 10 million cups since he started 25 years ago.
02:05Their design is deceptively simple — unpainted, handle-less vessels for drinking tea.
02:17It's a design that's been perfected over thousands of years by generations of craftsmen in India.
02:24But it's not enough to make a koolhad.
02:26It's a design that's been perfected over thousands of years by generations of craftsmen in India.
02:34We've been making koolhads since our ancestors, and we're still making them.
02:42It's hard, relentless work.
02:56After unloading the previous day's batch from the oven,
02:59workers prepare the clay for today's array of koolhads.
03:05They use a wire and their feet to slice and mix the clay,
03:11evening out its consistency and making it easier to work with.
03:16This clay, fresh from the ground, is the only ingredient in Jayaprakash's koolhads.
03:22And it gets more expensive year after year.
03:35He has no choice but to purchase from local sellers at whatever price the potter's union sets.
03:41The cost of importing clay would eat into what little profit he already makes.
03:45And he can't use just any soil.
03:53Before it's ready to shape into koolhads, bits of stone and grass need to be removed from the clay.
03:59Pebbles could cause the cups to explode in the oven,
04:02and grass could burn away and leave holes.
04:08Traditionally, it's men who make koolhads.
04:12But everyone in Jayaprakash's household works to keep up with demand.
04:26The tea shops he supplies expect deliveries daily.
04:33At its current size, Jayaprakash's workshop can only manage to produce around 2,500 cups a day.
04:48This makes it difficult to create any sort of backstock,
04:51meaning the workshop has to be in perpetual production mode.
05:03The air-dried koolhads are laid out in a series of tight, concentric circles and fired overnight.
05:19This formation efficiently bakes up to 10,000 koolhads at a time.
05:32But right now, it's monsoon season,
05:34which means even after a night in the oven, the koolhads might not be dry.
05:51Setbacks like this make it even harder for Jayaprakash to keep up with the already overwhelming demand.
06:03Paper and plastic cups are cheaper and more convenient than koolhads,
06:08making them an appealing alternative to tea shops operating on razor-thin margins.
06:15Vendors like Kashi Nath Khole buy cups from Jayaprakash for about half a rupee apiece.
06:21He can get paper cups for a price of Rs. 1,000 a piece.
06:24Despite the markup, most of the 100 to 150 cups of tea he sells each day come in koolhads.
06:54Koolhad proponents are adamant that tea sipped from clay tastes better.
07:16With plastic, it's more than flavor that seeps into your tea.
07:20Numerous studies have shown that hot liquids in plastic cups,
07:24as well as paper cups coated with plastic,
07:27can leach microplastics and a chemical called bisphenol A from the container.
07:33Even in fine amounts, bisphenol A, or BPA, has been linked to cancer, reproductive issues,
07:41problems with brain development, and many other diseases and dysfunctions.
07:46Research on microplastics is limited,
07:49but they're associated with a similar laundry list of potential issues.
07:53There's no evidence that drinking from a koolhad has any negative effect on a person's health.
08:00But what about making a koolhad?
08:16The koolhad might not be as eco-friendly as it's chalked up to be, either.
08:44Koolhad proponents claim that because the cups are made from earth,
08:48they are easily biodegradable.
08:50But there haven't been any formal studies about this.
08:53Adding moisture to air-dried clay easily dissolves it.
08:57But fired clay is chemically changed into a more durable material.
09:02The reason we even know koolhads have been used for 5,000 years
09:06is that modern archaeologists were able to find surviving examples of them.
09:11Some craftsmen will bake their koolhads at lower temperatures
09:14to make the final product more easily disposable.
09:17But most koolhads aren't composted or handled in any specific way.
09:23When he's done drinking, Sumit's koolhad will go into the trash.
09:27Despite the immense challenges,
09:31Jaya Prakash is determined to keep making koolhads.
09:36He hopes to make more profit in order to improve conditions and hire new craftsmen.
09:57Koolhad prices are set by a union, so Jaya Prakash has no control over them.
10:03And if prices get too high, tea shops might turn away from them completely.
10:19The Indian government has made efforts to support koolhad craftsmen in the past.
10:24Like in 2020, when the railway's minister announced that all of India's trains
10:28and 7,000 stations would serve tea exclusively in koolhads.
10:33The initiative started with only 400 stations.
10:37More joined over the years, but progress appears to have stalled.
10:41Despite initiatives like these, koolhad craftsmen are dwindling.
10:54Jaya Prakash says he doesn't feel like he's competing with other craftsmen.
11:07Plastic has already taken out a previous arm of his business.
11:24His family has relied on this workshop for almost 100 years, but its future is uncertain.
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