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Saturday, March 20, 2010

BYO Utensils? Bags?

Today I'm thinking about all of the plastic utensils that get thrown away every day in the U.S. - it must be a huge number!  What got me thinking about it today is that it was the day that Rita's Water Ice gives away free ice to everyone who wants it and since it was such a beautiful weekend day, the lines were HUGE!  So I was thinking about all of those spoons.....

When we eat out, I collect things to take home and recycle or reuse and our 5 yr. old son is so used to this now that today he asked me if we should collect the spoons that we ate our Rita's with "so the birds won't feed them to their babies and get sick and die" (You gotta' love the little guys!).  And indeed we did.  But I couldn't help thinking that it would have been so much better if we had brought our own spoons to use instead.  SO...after those 5 plastic spoons were washed, I packed them into my purse for future use...so the next time I'll have them instead of always thinking what a great idea it would be.  I think I'll put some in the glove compartment, too.

That's how I kicked the plastic bag habit...I had to constantly load my car with reusable bags until it just became a habit to grab them on my way to the store.

I really applaud the restaurants that take the extra effort to not use disposable utensils and containers.  I need to start letting them know that I appreciate their efforts.  Maybe it will spur them on to do even better.

I've read that some people are now bringing their own containers to extra food home from the restaurant in - I love that idea!  Don't we all hate those styrofoam containers?  Usually the waiters just bring them to the table for you to load yourself, so why not bring your own?

What bring-your-own things do you do?  Let's talk BYO for the environment!

5 comments:

  1. I love the Rise Above Plastics blog...here's a post with a great item on plastic bags by Julia Durgee:
    http://riseaboveplastics.blogspot.com/2010/03/refuse-bag.html

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  2. More cool info. on this topic at Rise Above Plastics:
    http://riseaboveplastics.blogspot.com/2010/03/current-polystyrene-ban-list.html

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  3. I love the idea of bringing your own. Make sure to tell the people at Rita's ahead of time that you don't need spoons.

    We never buy napkins anymore, since the restaurants give you so many...we just put them in my purse and take them home to use. Otherwise they would just get thrown in the trash. Why no reuse?

    I love all of your ideas :)

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  4. I'm concerned, though, at what point 'storing for re-use' becomes 'hoarding'.

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  5. @sikbrik: I agree! I think the best way is to not store for reuse....We will try to always have our reusables around so that we don't have to consume any new and not store and hoard! If you want to see the effects of plastic storage/hoarding, please come to my house - it has finally moved to the garage and is soon headed to Whole Foods for recycling, but before that happens, I will take pictures and blog about it! Hoarding = BAD...very, very BAD!

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