4 ms·

Downsides to using glass and wood for takeout should be obvious and please don't put my soup in a paper takeout container.

• unethical_ban 2y ago
  What about the downside of takeout?
  • SauntSolaire 2y ago
    Okay so now your solution involves banning takeout. Also leftovers are a thing.
    • soulofmischief 2y ago
      > Also leftovers are a thing. Are you familiar with glass? Leftovers are a solved problem.
      • johnisgood 2y ago
        Or plastic, or whatever else. Leftovers are not an issue, unless I order from a place and they happen to use paper (or cardboard) containers as I cannot store them for too long.
      • SauntSolaire 2y ago
        You're bringing glass containers with you to restaurants for your leftovers?
        • soulofmischief 2y ago
          Is that an insane proposition? Are we now shaming and ridiculing people for not prioritizing convenience over long-term sustainability? This is exactly what a lifestyle change looks like. I'm sorry, but there are exceedingly few such necessary changes which will introduce more convenience into your life. Most of them will be at an inconvenience. Our problem was letting ourselves get conditioned into normalizing unsustainable habits. A large amount of plastic waste needs to be eliminated, and if you can't be bothered to bring your own leftover containers to a restaurant, maybe you should be getting smaller portions.
          • BadHumans 2y ago
            It is kinda insane yes. I'd rather just eat less takeout than carry glassware with me all the time on the off chance I decide to go out to eat.
            • soulofmischief 2y ago
              It's too much work to keep some in the trunk? You can buy plexiglass with external silicone support structures which are much more practical and less noisy to have in a moving vehicle. But yeah less takeout is an okay choice too. Like, I love the taste and texture of meat, I'm designed to, but I abstain from eating it because of the environmental and ethical impact of the global meat industry. It's a sacrifice, one I'm often ridiculed for down here in the Southern US as well.
              • SauntSolaire 2y ago
                > It's too much work to keep some in the trunk? Assuming I have a car. Let me just carry some glassware around with me on the train just in case. Actually, all of this and you have a car? Talk about prioritizing convenience over long-term sustainability. Consider using public transit instead; this is exactly what a lifestyle change looks like.
                • soulofmischief 2y ago
                  Nice try. 1. I don't have a car, and I try to leverage buses, trains, etc. when I can. Or I just walk. 2. My current city, which I have recently moved back to temporarily, is notorious for its lack of walkability or adequate public transit. Not every city is like San Francisco. Many cities in the south are explicitly designed to make things difficult for poor people, and to segregate them. My advice was for people who do have cars. If you don't, it is not difficult to carry something around in a bag if you regularly eat out and take home leftovers. I felt no need to be exhaustive, the advice is easily modifiable to other situations. In your rushed attempt to paint me as a hypocrite, all you've done is get an egg on your face. It sounds like you're the one who needs to change your lifestyle, and be less presumptuous.
• chmod775 2y ago
  A local chain here ships soup in some sort of biodegradable coated-cardboard-bucket-thingies. They still put a plastic lid on it, but I wouldn't dismiss cardboard/paper. They're good enough for transport, though they do degrade pretty fast (they'll get leaky after a day or so).
  • lazide 2y ago
    Most of the time, these are actually done with PFAS ‘wax’ regardless of how it is labeled. Just like them labeling a container with a plastic lid as ‘biodegradable’.
• trhway 2y ago
  >Downsides to using ... wood for takeout should be obvious I don't understand why our civilization has still not replaced almost everything with bamboo (though technically the bamboo is grass, not wood). It grows fast (and an order of magnitude better sink for CO2 than trees) and seems to be very usable as bamboo utensils demonstrate for example.
  • lazide 2y ago
    It’s more expensive and more of a hassle to deal with than plastic or plastic/wax coated paper.
  • ninalanyon 2y ago
    Bamboo requires a lot of processing to make anything useful out of it. It's not as eco-friendly as the manufacturers of bamboo products, especially fabrics, like to make out.
• soulofmischief 2y ago
  These are the personal lifestyle choices which enable major worldwide pollution. Maybe we need to take a step back and reevaluate which parts of our lifestyles are truly sustainable. I'm not speaking from a soapbox, I need to do this as well. If we could unify enough to make collective demands about food packaging, and push for aggressive banning of most plastics in the food and retail industry, something might actually change. Until then we can expect for things to get irreparably worse, as we trade immediate convenience for posterus generational suffering.
  • numpad0 2y ago
    You have to become immune to all kinds of pathogens to stop companies from using plastics for food packaging and encourage takeouts. That's why restaurants don't allow brought-in takeout containers and why supermarkets vacuum bags everything made of nuclear grade lining materials. Chances are that you or your surviving family members WILL successfully sue Walmart after you've gotten getting E. coli from deli section. They can either be brave and take your poorly sanitized glass bioreactors, or just give you bleached and prepackaged salad in transparent dinosaur juice and forget about all what I'm saying. The latter is arguably the better option for basically everybody.
    • soulofmischief 2y ago
      I've worked in food service in just about every position but sous chef. I understand the regulations and pathogenic dangers. I've also worked on organic neighborhood farm, where people would come to our location, grab vegetables with their hands and place them into their own cloth bags. We used plastic for items that went on store shelves, but everything else we tried to avoid them. We delivered vegetables to restaurants in cardboard boxes (which probably had thin plastic linings on them). Steps can be taken to massively reduce waste in food service; the problem is no one wants to change their lifestyle. They'd rather get takeout 3-10 times a week than visit a local organic farm or start/find a cooking co-op. > Chances are that you or your surviving family members WILL successfully sue Walmart after you've gotten getting E. coli from deli section I don't eat meat and my only real risk of E. coli is from storebought greens. It's a non-zero risk, and I would prefer to get my greens from a farm, but they are hard to find in my state. Our own organic farm was the constant target of police and DEA raids, as they were convinced we were drug-producing hippies. The state DEA agent spit on the driveway once and bragged about how confiscating and selling the farm would pay his salary for years. So there is a real challenge here, it's not just on us. It's also on our government officials. Besides, we can make hemp plastics, biodegradable plastics, etc. But there's no money in that as long as cheap single-use plastic is pervasive in the industry. What I can say with certainty is our current way of doing things is irresponsibly unsustainable, and we are failing in our duties to consider posterity. I'm watching my generation turn into an even more entitled bunch than the baby boomers when it comes to convenience at the sake of posterity.
• johnisgood 2y ago
  > my soup in a paper takeout container. There is an increasing use of paper takeout containers. Awful.