The café my partner used to work at had all compostable takeout stuff. Despite having a city wide compostable pickup program they did not bother with a compost bin so it all went directly in the trash. So I wouldn't assume its going to be properly disposed of, even when proper options exist.
this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2025
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Incredibly important point! We have to assume the local government takes composting seriously for composting to work, which we can't rely on.
The building I work in (downtown in Vancouver) doesn't even recycle (what the fuck?)
Reusable, washable ceramic wins
This article makes a strong case for using reusable, ceramic plates instead of disposable paper ones. The article treats clean, fresh water as its own thing, valuable in and of itself, which is fair enough. However, it occurred to me that we can assign a CO~2~ cost to it by considering how much CO~2~ is generated as a byproduct of desalination. In other words, if we're doing something to save X amount of water, that's worth Y amount of CO~2~ emmissions. I haven't done the math, but the hypothetical implication is that paper plates are even worse than the article describes and that dishwashing machines are even better. They might actually even payoff their own "carbon debt".
Thank you for sharing this! I am currently in Vancouver, so it was especially relevant :)
I guess the summary is that paper plates cost an amount to make and are used once, whereas a ceramic plate costs a larger amount to make but can be used many times. At this point it becomes a per-use question of which is more costly from an environmental perspective: manufacturing, transporting and tossing every time vs manufacturing once and washing 150 times to pay off the carbon debt of manufacturing. It seems washing is the solution!
Labor is the most expensive part of food service, and washing dishes is a big cost in labor and space.
Would this be a point in favour of washing dishes then? It results in more employment, but is this considered a win for the environment in this context?
banana leaves
This raises a question around the environmental impact of shipping banana leaves to places where they don't naturally occur and whether they'd last that long. although perhaps it would be a by-product of the process that already brings bananas to almost every store on earth.
This thought has crossed my mind in the past so thank you for bringing it up as the comments are interesting. I have been getting into bread and there is thing about supposedly in the past they would eat food off of a slab of bread and then eat the bread and of course in modern times you have bread bowels. I have been eating off the bread on a recycled paper towel (made from recycled paper and don't have bleach and junk) that then gets composted. My theory is that is better than using a dish but only works for some meals.
And you get a delicious bread treat after your meal ;)
yeah that was exactly the point. can use paper towels with a variety of other foods if they have bread or crust. sandwiches, pizza, etc. You can put a plate underneath for stability and not wash it but I think some people won't be able to handle that mentally.
Hmm, I'm not sure paper towels are compostable where I am. I've been trying to use as little as possible because I was told the volume of them builds up in the landfills. Is it really that wasteful to wash a plate?
um. you compost them at home not throw them in the trash. that would make no sense.
I seem to recall many years ago it was reported that a ceramic mug had such a high embodied energy that it was equivalent to 1000+ paper cups.
This definitely needs fact checking but it's an interesting consideration when you're considering the impact on the planet
Yeah, it's similar to the debate around whether paper bags or tote bags are more eco friendly. As others mentioned here in regards to dishwashers, what likely matters most is how many times an item must be used before it offsets the environmental cost of it's own production.
Perhaps how long it lasts before breaking down after it's lifespan as well... I.e. if all of humanity disappeared how long to return to a non-human impacted state?
Plastics and other such pollutants will last for millions of years... So regardless of useful lifespan, pollutant lifespan is far larger.
If everything we ever used was either wood or paper based, then even if useful lifespan were decades, pollutant lifespan before breaking down would be less than a century. How many times should you use something when the harmful particles it's made of will persist in the ecosystem for 10 million years?
Idk which is better, or how to measure the difference though.
So I'm in the clear after 3 years of morning coffees?
Erm. ChatGPT reckons it's closer to 20-40 cups for the same embodied energy. So my recollection was well off the mark.
I'll trust a stranger memory more than a LLM answer.