PACK A PLATE – reuse a party cup…reduce landfills…

Recently my great friend – Diane Darling – had a barbeque and invited everyone to bring their own food serving plates and utensils. Imagine – resting under a shady tree in a fragrant garden, you are eating yummy home cooked food – served on a real plate, eaten with a real fork – now doesn’t that sound better than using plastic forks and a plastic knife cutting through a soggy paper plate? Yep – me too, I loved it! There were all kinds of wonderful, creative and unique styles that people brought for plating their food. Everything from green speckled enameled steel plates and spoons to bamboo forks, to even vintage linen napkins and china! They all made an appearance, were carried around, emptied, and then were rinsed and packed out. I liked it. In fact – I loved it! So, inspired by this and a few other occasions – I have begun making a habit of taking my table service to potlucks, banquets, Festivals, even a Sustainability Conference. Now I am putting together an affordable kit of Green Ware, so you can pack in your own utensils too! Let’s take this Eco Conscious trend, and become a movement! Enough with the plastic forks, they are no fun to use, take tons of energy and create toxins in the making too. Take your stoneware mug to the coffee shop and a conversation will ensue about reuse and carbon footprints. Here are some facts to sprinkle about…

Most disposable cups are made from material that can’t be recycled and are non-biodegradable. An average coffee cup is probably used for no more than about 15-20 minutes before being thrown away – but can then sit for hundreds of years in a landfill site.

Biodegradable tableware is made from sugar cane fiber remaining after the extraction of juice from the sugar cane. This stuff is better than standard plastics and especially good for replacing Styrofoam, as it is a renewable resource and avoids pollution from the standard practice of burning the sugar can pulp after the juice has been extracted. But – even better is the reusable table ware that you can wash and pack into a bag along the way.

The PLA resin that is used to make these kind of cups is only made in the USA by Blair NE for a company called Natureworks LLC. All of the corn cups that Eco Products buys are imports from Taiwan. If you do the math the carbon foot print for taking the resin 22,000 miles to and from Taiwan is worse than simply buying a plastic cup here in the US. Buyer beware of where your environmental cups come from. Look for companies that are manufacturing these in the US. There is only a few but look hard enough and you will find them.
P.S. The resin in compostable cups and utensils may only be compostable in an industrial composting facility. There is a BIG difference…this all needs more study. Lots of disputed facts as we unfold these new technologies.

I remind us all – reduce, reuse, recycle – in that order.

Community appreciates
festival’s reusable plates
Emerald editorial board May 22, 2002 Daily Emerald

Hats off to the unsung heroes of the Campus Recycling crew who broke new ground this weekend at the Willamette Valley Folk Festival by being the first campus outdoor event (and possibly the first anywhere) to use real plates and forks instead of the mountains of disposable dishware usually found at events.

An enormous amount of planning by students and coordinators with the EMU and other University entities made it possible, and it was awesome! As a food vendor, I participated for the first time at this year’s event just to be involved with this worthy project, and I must say it went without a hitch. I was honored to be associated with the event and response from the public was ecstatic.

Thanks go to the ASUO, which allocated funds to buy reusable plates and forks, and to the many student volunteers who made it possible. The University deserves much praise for hosting the event and creating an environment that fosters such cutting-edge projects

- http://www.uoregon.edu/~recycle/events_topics_ReusablePlates_text.htm

People who use real dishes unite!!

talking toilets

Did I dare title this article – “let’s talk shit?”…no! Because we cannot talk about his sensitive topic in polite company…in fact, we cannot pretend that we even have such stuff in our lives, so we flush it away using gallons of ever-more-precious clean water…drinking quality water we have spent much time, energy and money getting to our front door, and yet more energy cleaning up over and over.

This has never made sense to me, esp. since the revelation I had one evening in 1969 – under the influence of an incredible brownie, I bored my friends for hours with my treatise on toilets and the curse of the flush toilet and how it has ruined civilization, blah, blah, blah…

Well, I was actually on to something – but it was 40 years too soon, as usual. Now, things have caught up with us and here in California as we watch the reservoirs dry up and counties begin to squabble over who owns the right to suck out which river…we are beginning to talk water conservation…not toilets – yet – but i predict it is only a matter of time…

I especially am bothered by the sound in women’s public bathrooms – of a toilet being flushed before and after use! Why not let it “mellow”? Of course, we are afraid of contamination and probably rightly so. I had a crazy idea last year of offering a “Flexi-flush” stall in some multi-stall public facility to see if women could be encouraged to flush only occasionally ( every third use?) rather than every time.

They could choose to use that stall, and would get a “GOLD STAR” for not flushing…also a pen/poster on the door could be used to note every time a flush was saved…we could monitor our progress in saving water. Crazy? Maybe not! Maybe we could slowly change some habits.

There are great options to flushing. The best one so far is the composting toilet. I have used a number of these inventions, and can tell you that almost every experience was a majorly smell-free and enjoyable moment, as these things go…of course. So, check out composting toilets as you build new houses or change out old bathrooms, I think we could change the shitty direction things are going! There – I said it.

PAPER or PLASTIC? NEITHER!

Break the plastic bag habit by bringing a reusable bag on your next shopping trip! The bags you choose at the checkout counter are an important part of our habit-breaking new “Green Lifestyle”. Use your own tote to cart your groceries home are also important for your wellbeing and that of the planet. Carrying a sturdy yet style-wise bag that can be left in your car between uses, such as those available from Ancient Circles, will help you break the plastic bag habit.

I take mine back out to the car next day folded up – and leave it in the trunk. it takes a few times to remember to do this simple thing, but the personal reward of “goodness” is worth the effort!Across the globe, plastic bags such as those dispensed in stores are consumed at a rate of one million a minute, yet single-use carriers will hang around long afterwards, polluting soil and waterways. Further, there is 12 million barrels of oil used in this country every year to produce these bags. All of this contributes to climate change.

Paper is not any better, and in fact - some studies agree that paper is more energy intensive to produce, and creates Dioxins in the process.

And don’t forget to take reusable bags to your local farmers markets this summer. Make a difference when you can!

Visit the Conscious Consumer Marketplace for more information about plastic bags and reusable alternatives.

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