5 ms·

So what is the best replacement for fast food and takeaway purposes? Bamboo cutlery?

rootusrootus 8y ago
I wonder how much of the existing plastic could be replaced with PLA. For a lot of use cases it should have all the same upsides as oil-based plastic.
mc32 8y ago
Maybe you bring your own (multi use) take away container? Kind of like when you bring your own coffee mug to a coffee shop?
- GeneralMayhem 8y ago
  Even setting aside the inconvenience factor, that would become a hygiene problem very quickly. Disposability is extremely useful when cleaning isn't an immediate option.
  - mc32 8y ago
    With demand, (*some) offices will install fridges and sinks to accommodate new behavior, no?
    - krastanov 8y ago
      There is an edge case that is actually problematic: the one person that does not wash their multiple-use take-away container can be a source of contamination that hurts many more. This is something that buffet restaurants and school/university cafeterias actually have to deal with today. It is a minor problem (solvable with some discipline and maybe minor regulation), but it is still a problem.
  - hombre_fatal 8y ago
    Maybe we'll just bring or receive our fast-fired pottery plates, eat on them, smash them into the clay pile on the way out, and some companies collect and recycle it back into quick pottery the same way companies drop drums of water off at my house. A lot of these comments just remind me of a roomie I had in uni would would come up with endless reasons why he never owned a single reusable piece of dishware. It's suddenly about hygiene and... do you even know how many people die in $country cuz they can't just throw their plates away?! And the time savings! He must save hours each day actually if you do the math. And are you sure using so much water to clean a plate is any eco-friendlier than the plastic he just tossed after eating that sandwich? Oh yeah, and disabled people! How would he clean a plate if he had no hands? Or if he was just a disembodied head whose only form of locomotion was to be tossed around like a volleyball. What then, huh?? But at this point you indulge him just to see if he'll even admit that he's just not willing to spend 5 seconds rinsing a plate after use. And any time he does use one of the communal reusable dishes, it'll collect mold in the sink until someone else washes it for him.
  - tzs 8y ago
    I wonder if cutlery actually needs more cleaning than wiping thoroughly with a napkin after use, at least if it is cutlery that isn't shared? There is a tendency nowadays to be more concerned with dirt and germs than is biologically justified (possibly to our detriment in some cases--some researchers think that the rise in prevalence of allergies and asthma in children is due to insufficient exposure to things that can help train their immune systems since we are stopping those things before they get that far).
- DoreenMichele 8y ago
  We already have an uptick in "medieval diseases"* from unsanitary conditions among the homeless. Getting takeout is one of the ways homeless individuals who have a modicum of cash income (as opposed to just food stamps and the like) can take care of themselves to some reasonable degree. They generally aren't going to be in a position to properly wash and cleanly store their own take away containers. Soup kitchens typically have worse food quality than fast food places, plus you typically wait in line for an hour or more next to other very poor people (often, but not always, also homeless). They frequently smell of cigarette smoke and/or marijuana smoke and are often in quite poor health, exposing you to a concentration of germs. Soup kitchens have a tendency to be a horrifying concentration of poverty that makes it quite difficult to avoid ending up sick. It didn't take long on the the street for me to decide that I would rather not eat for short stints than to go to most soup kitchens. It's also not uncommon for people who are handicapped, elderly or otherwise have personal challenges and personal burdens to rely heavily on take out. It's cheaper than eating in the restaurant because you can supply your own drinks, buy two meals and split it between three people in the privacy of your home and you don't necessarily have to tip. (I realize tipping is not a thing in some places, but you can get take out from places where it is a thing.) * https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/medieval-diseases-flare-as-unsanitary-living-conditions-proliferate/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/medieval-diseases...
  - mc32 8y ago
    I wouldn’t be against carve outs for a relatively small proportion of the pop like the homeless. Also instead of takeout they can do cafeteria style feeding (I believe this was his if was done in the past, aka soup kitchens from the depression era).
    - DoreenMichele 8y ago
      I already addressed why soup kitchens are a worse alternative than fast food in my experience. I can't believe you are rebutting any of my points with "We can just have more soup kitchens!" Some homeless people are living in their car, attending school or have a job, etc. It is not uncommon for homeless people to be actively trying to fit in and not be noticed as homeless. Most people did not think I was homeless upon meeting me. They only figured it out by seeing me repeatedly and realizing I wore the same clothes for two weeks or more and had "homeless habits" of various sorts. Even if you are not loathe to admit in line that you are homeless and entitled to the exception, how to you prove you are homeless? Proving a lack of a home winds up being a real issue for homeless people seeking services. The lack of something is often inherently hard to prove. Sometimes homeless people are told they can only access services if they are registered with one of the homeless services in town as proof of their lack of housing. This winds up being a serious barrier to accessing services. Now I need my registered homeless card to get my take out in disposable containers? And then simply having the containers signals to everyone who sees me that I'm probably homeless because that is on a short list of exemptions that entitle you to disposable containers? Let's just start tattooing blue lines across the foreheads of all homeless people to make sure they are branded for life. It would be vastly simpler than our current methodologies for politely painting them into a corner at every turn. (<-- sarcasm, obviously)
mciancia 8y ago
Cutlery made from paper and/or wood
- Pfhreak 8y ago
  Or plant starches maybe?
incog-neato 8y ago
Why not: Fast food: metal cutlery at the restaurant that gets washed and reused. Take away: your own cutlery at home.
- randyrand 8y ago
  And if you're on the go? Eating as a passenger in a car, etc.
  - ocdtrekkie 8y ago
    I can fathom having a portable case for a set of silverware, that you clean when you get home.
    - randyrand 8y ago
      In the future we'll just walk around with silverware and a cup at all times.
      - theklub 8y ago
        Actually you might be onto a new market, creating forks that you bring with you everywhere like a pocket knife.
        jtuente 8y ago
        I wouldn't call camping supplies a new market so much as repurposed.
        zaarn 8y ago
        A pocketknife already doubles as a fork.
        jpindar 8y ago
        They exist, and some of them don't look at all like camping equipment. https://www.amazon.com/Aluminum-Pen-Shape-Stainless-Folding-Chopsticks/dp/B00NPV9XV8/ref=sr_1_18?keywords=folding&qid=1553801766&s=kitchen&sr=1-18 https://www.amazon.com/Aluminum-Pen-Shape-Stainless-Folding-...
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
jnurmine 8y ago
Maybe something like sulapac (www.sulapac.com) which is biodegradable and without plastic of any kind. For mugs and cups there is Isla packaging from Kotkamills. Solutions exist, plastic for consumer single use stuff is just plain stupid.

I wonder how much of the existing plastic could be replaced with PLA. For a lot of use cases it should have all the same upsides as oil-based plastic.

mc32 8y ago

Maybe you bring your own (multi use) take away container? Kind of like when you bring your own coffee mug to a coffee shop?

GeneralMayhem 8y ago
Even setting aside the inconvenience factor, that would become a hygiene problem very quickly. Disposability is extremely useful when cleaning isn't an immediate option.
- mc32 8y ago
  With demand, (*some) offices will install fridges and sinks to accommodate new behavior, no?
  - krastanov 8y ago
    There is an edge case that is actually problematic: the one person that does not wash their multiple-use take-away container can be a source of contamination that hurts many more. This is something that buffet restaurants and school/university cafeterias actually have to deal with today. It is a minor problem (solvable with some discipline and maybe minor regulation), but it is still a problem.
- hombre_fatal 8y ago
  Maybe we'll just bring or receive our fast-fired pottery plates, eat on them, smash them into the clay pile on the way out, and some companies collect and recycle it back into quick pottery the same way companies drop drums of water off at my house. A lot of these comments just remind me of a roomie I had in uni would would come up with endless reasons why he never owned a single reusable piece of dishware. It's suddenly about hygiene and... do you even know how many people die in $country cuz they can't just throw their plates away?! And the time savings! He must save hours each day actually if you do the math. And are you sure using so much water to clean a plate is any eco-friendlier than the plastic he just tossed after eating that sandwich? Oh yeah, and disabled people! How would he clean a plate if he had no hands? Or if he was just a disembodied head whose only form of locomotion was to be tossed around like a volleyball. What then, huh?? But at this point you indulge him just to see if he'll even admit that he's just not willing to spend 5 seconds rinsing a plate after use. And any time he does use one of the communal reusable dishes, it'll collect mold in the sink until someone else washes it for him.
- tzs 8y ago
  I wonder if cutlery actually needs more cleaning than wiping thoroughly with a napkin after use, at least if it is cutlery that isn't shared? There is a tendency nowadays to be more concerned with dirt and germs than is biologically justified (possibly to our detriment in some cases--some researchers think that the rise in prevalence of allergies and asthma in children is due to insufficient exposure to things that can help train their immune systems since we are stopping those things before they get that far).
DoreenMichele 8y ago
We already have an uptick in "medieval diseases"* from unsanitary conditions among the homeless. Getting takeout is one of the ways homeless individuals who have a modicum of cash income (as opposed to just food stamps and the like) can take care of themselves to some reasonable degree. They generally aren't going to be in a position to properly wash and cleanly store their own take away containers. Soup kitchens typically have worse food quality than fast food places, plus you typically wait in line for an hour or more next to other very poor people (often, but not always, also homeless). They frequently smell of cigarette smoke and/or marijuana smoke and are often in quite poor health, exposing you to a concentration of germs. Soup kitchens have a tendency to be a horrifying concentration of poverty that makes it quite difficult to avoid ending up sick. It didn't take long on the the street for me to decide that I would rather not eat for short stints than to go to most soup kitchens. It's also not uncommon for people who are handicapped, elderly or otherwise have personal challenges and personal burdens to rely heavily on take out. It's cheaper than eating in the restaurant because you can supply your own drinks, buy two meals and split it between three people in the privacy of your home and you don't necessarily have to tip. (I realize tipping is not a thing in some places, but you can get take out from places where it is a thing.) * https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/medieval-diseases-flare-as-unsanitary-living-conditions-proliferate/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/medieval-diseases...
- mc32 8y ago
  I wouldn’t be against carve outs for a relatively small proportion of the pop like the homeless. Also instead of takeout they can do cafeteria style feeding (I believe this was his if was done in the past, aka soup kitchens from the depression era).
  - DoreenMichele 8y ago
    I already addressed why soup kitchens are a worse alternative than fast food in my experience. I can't believe you are rebutting any of my points with "We can just have more soup kitchens!" Some homeless people are living in their car, attending school or have a job, etc. It is not uncommon for homeless people to be actively trying to fit in and not be noticed as homeless. Most people did not think I was homeless upon meeting me. They only figured it out by seeing me repeatedly and realizing I wore the same clothes for two weeks or more and had "homeless habits" of various sorts. Even if you are not loathe to admit in line that you are homeless and entitled to the exception, how to you prove you are homeless? Proving a lack of a home winds up being a real issue for homeless people seeking services. The lack of something is often inherently hard to prove. Sometimes homeless people are told they can only access services if they are registered with one of the homeless services in town as proof of their lack of housing. This winds up being a serious barrier to accessing services. Now I need my registered homeless card to get my take out in disposable containers? And then simply having the containers signals to everyone who sees me that I'm probably homeless because that is on a short list of exemptions that entitle you to disposable containers? Let's just start tattooing blue lines across the foreheads of all homeless people to make sure they are branded for life. It would be vastly simpler than our current methodologies for politely painting them into a corner at every turn. (<-- sarcasm, obviously)

mciancia 8y ago

Cutlery made from paper and/or wood

Pfhreak 8y ago
Or plant starches maybe?

incog-neato 8y ago

Why not: Fast food: metal cutlery at the restaurant that gets washed and reused. Take away: your own cutlery at home.

randyrand 8y ago
And if you're on the go? Eating as a passenger in a car, etc.
- ocdtrekkie 8y ago
  I can fathom having a portable case for a set of silverware, that you clean when you get home.
  - randyrand 8y ago
    In the future we'll just walk around with silverware and a cup at all times.
    - theklub 8y ago
      Actually you might be onto a new market, creating forks that you bring with you everywhere like a pocket knife.
      - jtuente 8y ago
        I wouldn't call camping supplies a new market so much as repurposed.
      - zaarn 8y ago
        A pocketknife already doubles as a fork.
      - jpindar 8y ago
        They exist, and some of them don't look at all like camping equipment. https://www.amazon.com/Aluminum-Pen-Shape-Stainless-Folding-Chopsticks/dp/B00NPV9XV8/ref=sr_1_18?keywords=folding&qid=1553801766&s=kitchen&sr=1-18 https://www.amazon.com/Aluminum-Pen-Shape-Stainless-Folding-...

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

jnurmine 8y ago

Maybe something like sulapac (www.sulapac.com) which is biodegradable and without plastic of any kind. For mugs and cups there is Isla packaging from Kotkamills. Solutions exist, plastic for consumer single use stuff is just plain stupid.