Do you regularly use disposable plates?

[NHdisneylover]

Like NEVER? Like you'd starve first?

Do you eat at McDonalds? Do you eat at Disney World? You are eating off of a PIECE of paper at those places. Or, do you carry Corelle in your purse?

Oh for goodness sakes--most people would know that refers to never when the poster is doing the serving.

I like how they do fairs and festivals here in Germany. Even at big outdoor festivals with tents and fair food you will not get paper plates/plastic forks/etc You will get the real deal and pay a deposit for it. Finish your food, return you plate/cutlery/glass and get your money back. SOooooo much better for the environment.

Which is why we only use them a few times a year. I can't imagine using paper plates/cups and PLASTIC silverware every day. Just thinking aobut it makes me shudder.

And I don't know about anyone else, but *my* hotdogs deserve their own REAL plates.

It makes me shudder too. You're other comment makes me --I would say I deserve food better than hotdogs

Same here. I don't have 5 kids but I have 3. Anyone that lives alone or with 1 child or with a spouse only can't talk about it not taking any more time than real plates. Not with schedules the way they are, not with teenage boys.

My son probably eats every hour when he is at home. He is 14, somewhere between 5'9" and 5'10" and wears a 29 waist jeans. He is a teenager and he eats, he is an eating machine. When he makes himself a snack or a sandwich he uses paper plates, otherwise I would have anywhere form 5-10 plates a day from his alone. In my world, this isn't going to happen, I am way to busy for this.

I don't care what people use, but I use paper for certain things, I will always do this, my food doesn't"deserve" anything except to be enjoyed. and if someone can't enjoy a hotdog or hamburger on a paper plate, well then good thing they aren't friends with me.

Okay, I admit to only having 2 kids--but I get the added chaos of trying to live in a country where i only somewhat speak the language, dealing with a husband who travels about 40 weeks a year, etc. It probably evens out. I don't even have a dishwasher--not that big of a deal. My kids (yep, even the 12 year old boy) can wash their own plate after a snack without it being a huge imposition. I will never be too busy to want to do some minimal things to help makes sure the Earth is in decent shape for them as they age. My kids are waaay to important for me to use "too busy" as an excuse. A lot of what we do has an impact, but I do try to minimize it by doing things like using real plates (no effort involved there really--I never even considered the option of paper on a regular basis), hanging at least 50% of the laundry to dry, recycling and composting. None of this takes much time at all once you are used to doing it and establish a routine. All of it really helps keep the world a better place for my kids--and yours.

YOu guys are going to love me. I don't recycle either.

You sound like you are proud of this. I hoe I am misreading the tone.

I wish ours did!

My neighbor across the street just added TWO MORE bags to her garbage pile. How can two people make so much garbage when they both work all day and go out for dinner every single night??

No, I'm not spying on her. My computer faces out the front windows, and her house is directly in my line of sight.

We are limited to one 80 liter can of trash every other week. Recycling goes out on alternate weeks (except glass which goes out once a month) and is free and unlimited. Trash is 3.50 Euro per can with that 80 liter limit. Amazingly enough, with minimal effort we find we only put that can out every 4-6 weeks (4 when we have company).

 

[disykat]

I don't think I've met anyone in the last ten years who doesn't recycle!

I'm curious, why wouldn't someone recycle?

 

[Momvic5]

Have the paper napkins already been duked out? I haven't been around the DIS that much lately, so I may have missed it..

I had the same thought. We use paper towels and facial tissues regularly too. I guess we are extra wasteful and lazy.

 

[smb6]

I use paperplates everyday. I have 5 kids and no dishwasher; it saves my sanity....

 

[tlbwriter]

I don't think I've met anyone in the last ten years who doesn't recycle!

I'm curious, why wouldn't someone recycle?

Unfortunately, my community makes it difficult. They do not pick up recycling at all, so you must deliver it yourself. The community recycling bins are not manned or monitored, they do not take most plastics, and are they are not dumped often enough. Sometimes you just can't fit your stuff in there, and sometimes they're full of trash and you know your recyclables will just be tossed due to the mixed load. The only place you can recycle aluminum for money is in an odd location and has odd hours. So the only things we recycle are paper and cardboard, which can be taken to our daughter's school (this is run by a private company and the school gets a percentage). If we used a lot of aluminum cans we'd probably manage to recycle those, but we don't.

 

[luvsJack]

Dh is like that about using paper plates (we don't actually use paper, they are either plastic or that thick paper/cardboard type), he HAS to have a real plate. His dad is the same way. At MIL's--family dinner, seven kids all with spouses and a minimum of 2 kids each, several of those kids have spouses and there are 5 great-grands and always at least 3 extra kids who were staying over with on of the grands. EVERYONE uses a disposable plate except those two.

When the rest of us are eating off disposable; I just tell DH--you eat off of it, you wash it.

 

[mhsjax]

Oh for goodness sakes--most people would know that refers to never when the poster is doing the serving.

I like how they do fairs and festivals here in Germany. Even at big outdoor festivals with tents and fair food you will not get paper plates/plastic forks/etc You will get the real deal and pay a deposit for it. Finish your food, return you plate/cutlery/glass and get your money back. SOooooo much better for the environment.


It makes me shudder too. You're other comment makes me --I would say I deserve food better than hotdogs

Okay, I admit to only having 2 kids--but I get the added chaos of trying to live in a country where i only somewhat speak the language, dealing with a husband who travels about 40 weeks a year, etc. It probably evens out. I don't even have a dishwasher--not that big of a deal. My kids (yep, even the 12 year old boy) can wash their own plate after a snack without it being a huge imposition. I will never be too busy to want to do some minimal things to help makes sure the Earth is in decent shape for them as they age. My kids are waaay to important for me to use "too busy" as an excuse. A lot of what we do has an impact, but I do try to minimize it by doing things like using real plates (no effort involved there really--I never even considered the option of paper on a regular basis), hanging at least 50% of the laundry to dry, recycling and composting. None of this takes much time at all once you are used to doing it and establish a routine. All of it really helps keep the world a better place for my kids--and yours.

You sound like you are proud of this. I hoe I am misreading the tone.


We are limited to one 80 liter can of trash every other week. Recycling goes out on alternate weeks (except glass which goes out once a month) and is free and unlimited. Trash is 3.50 Euro per can with that 80 liter limit. Amazingly enough, with minimal effort we find we only put that can out every 4-6 weeks (4 when we have company).

Ok, my last post on this. I don't recycle because around here, most of what you can recycle, I don't use. I will use paper plates when eating a sandwich, your kids are no more important to you than mine are to me, This is the nastiness I am talking about here on this thread. What in the hell to kids being important have to do with using a paper plate to eat a fricken sandwich off of. Do any of you see the stupidity of all of this. It is absolutely crazy. I have too many kid in and out, as another pp stated, to be using real plates for sandwiches and snacks. If you want to wash 10-15 plates a day then fine, I don't. And that doesn't include dinner plates, that is just breakfast and lunch. For dinner when I cook, we do use real plates. And I don't have room in my kitchen for more than one person to be cleaning up after themselves. Literally, a one person kitchen.


Use your real plate for PB&J or whatever sandwich you eat. Use your good bone china for all I care, but please everyone, quit acting holier than thou because you don't use paper, I really don't care.

 

[ChrizJen]

We never use them. We don't even keep them in our house. It's not that I have anything against it, but we just don't feel the need. We have a dishwasher, so it's not really that difficult to use real plates. We do keep the plastic utensils from takeout for if we need them. But we never buy disposable. The funny thing is, I have a feeling that if we had it around, we'd probably use it. So we just don't keep it around.

 

[bettymae1121]

Ok, my last post on this. I don't recycle because around here, most of what you can recycle, I don't use. I will use paper plates when eating a sandwich, your kids are no more important to you than mine are to me, This is the nastiness I am talking about here on this thread. What in the hell to kids being important have to do with using a paper plate to eat a fricken sandwich off of. Do any of you see the stupidity of all of this. It is absolutely crazy. I have too many kid in and out, as another pp stated, to be using real plates for sandwiches and snacks. If you want to wash 10-15 plates a day then fine, I don't. And that doesn't include dinner plates, that is just breakfast and lunch. For dinner when I cook, we do use real plates. And I don't have room in my kitchen for more than one person to be cleaning up after themselves. Literally, a one person kitchen.


Use your real plate for PB&J or whatever sandwich you eat. Use your good bone china for all I care, but please everyone, quit acting holier than thou because you don't use paper, I really don't care.

I have to say I think your reading way too much into the "we don't use paper plates" posts, I'm not getting a "holier than thou" attitude at all (except in a tongue in cheek sort of way). Other than the one "lazy" comment I don't recall seeing anyone else saying it was a bad thing, other than for their own families and situation.

I think they are wasteful and I think it's bad for the enviroment, but I don't think that others that choose to use disposable are bad people. I truely don't understand the choice, I grew up in a busy household like your own (three kids, two parents that worked full time and a neighborhood of kids runing through the house during summers and weekends) and all the dishes got done, no disposable needed. But even though I don't understand the choice, doesn't mean I think I'm superior to you, or that your a bad person, or whatever, and I'm not getting those vibes from the other posts either.

Sure I wish more people would choose not to use so many disposables, but at the end of the day, "to each their own".

 

[RayaniFoxmur]

I don't think I've met anyone in the last ten years who doesn't recycle!

I'm curious, why wouldn't someone recycle?

I am absolutely ashamed of it but we don't recycle either.

We live in an apartment complex, on the 3rd floor - walk up. The complex gives us no place to recycle and we don't live near a recycling drop off either. Plus, with as small as our apartment is we really would have no where to put things even if we did! Heck, we barely have room for our trash can! Luckily we don't really use a lot of the things that would be recyclable like soda cans or newspaper... but I still always feel guilty that we don't have the ability to have a recycling bin or something.

 

[maslex]

We use them quite regularly. I use them in the morning if I'm just having toast or a bagel, at lunch time if I'm having a sandwich/chips and at dinner time if we're having bread/garlic bread, rolls, etc. We'll eat our dinner on regular plates but if it's something that will just produce crumbs...then it goes on a paper plate.

We also use them during picnics, parties, etc.

 

[FireDancer]

I don't think I've met anyone in the last ten years who doesn't recycle!

I'm curious, why wouldn't someone recycle?

Unfortunately some places make it difficult to recycle. My city is pretty good and picks up recycling every trash day for no extra charge (I'm sure it is included in taxes though). Some places make you take it to a central location or pay extra for it and I don't blame anyone for not doing either of those.

 

[pioneer89]

I've scanned the threat, and forgive me if someone has posted something already, but has anyone come up with an actual comparison for the environmental impact of paper plates vs. ceramic?

Here is what little I've been able to find:

Washing vs. disposable.

Energy use: Washing a plate takes about 0.27MJ of energy (in a dishwasher). Creating and distributing a paper plate takes between 0.38 and 0.66 MJ of energy, depending on the thickness of the plate. Ceramic plates are the marginal winner here, with the type of paper plate playing a large part.

Atmosphereic Polution: Creating a ceramic plate releases about 600g of emissions into the atmosphere once. Each paper plate releases about 1g of emissions once. Ceramic Plates are the huge winner here, I expect to get 30,000 usues from a ceramic plate, that's 50x more impact from using paper.

Land Impact: Ceramic plates require large areas of land to be disrupted for mining. Paper plates require even larger tree farms. This is entirely subjective, would you rather live next to a mine, or a tree farm? My vote is paper wins out here. The environmental impact is the same as any other farm, and farm land can be recovered much easier than a mine. Very subjective though.

Water Impact: This is a tough one. Paper Mills don't really "use up" much water at all. They do pollute water, which must be treated before being discharged. That cost of treatment is included in the energy above. Same goes with washing dishes. The water simply goes down the drain to a septic field or water treatment plant. With modern government regulation of the paper mill discharge, I don't see a clear winner/loser here.

I didn't look at: Impact of washing detergent for ceramic plates, or landfill costs for paper. Both are tough ones to crack. Obviously, if you can compost paper plates, it's much better, and if you use an eco-friendly detergent, you lower (not remove) your washing polution.


DISCLAIMER: I got all my facts off the Intra-webs, the possibility that I was lied to is pretty large, but I did look for good sources. (I used a MIT wiki, and a Canadian government study for most of my numbers, so right there you know I'm wrong. After all, the last people you should trust is college scientists and governments. )

 

[wvjules]

I'll use a paper plate, or napkin, for a sandwich, grilled cheese, stuff like that. But for everything else we use real dishes. We have some lovely outdoor dishes from Pier 1 that we use when we cook out. And we spent months picking out the dishes we wanted so we better use them. We have brown/blue when we eat in the dining room and red/black when we eat in the kitchen. (The theme of the kitchen is red and black and the dining room is blue and brown.)

 

[NHdisneylover]

Ok, my last post on this. I don't recycle because around here, most of what you can recycle, I don't use. I will use paper plates when eating a sandwich, your kids are no more important to you than mine are to me, This is the nastiness I am talking about here on this thread. What in the hell to kids being important have to do with using a paper plate to eat a fricken sandwich off of. Do any of you see the stupidity of all of this. It is absolutely crazy. I have too many kid in and out, as another pp stated, to be using real plates for sandwiches and snacks. If you want to wash 10-15 plates a day then fine, I don't. And that doesn't include dinner plates, that is just breakfast and lunch. For dinner when I cook, we do use real plates. And I don't have room in my kitchen for more than one person to be cleaning up after themselves. Literally, a one person kitchen.


Use your real plate for PB&J or whatever sandwich you eat. Use your good bone china for all I care, but please everyone, quit acting holier than thou because you don't use paper, I really don't care.

SIGH--maybe I did not phrase things well enough. I was responding to YOU saying that it is because your kids are important to you and you want to spend time with them that you do not wash plates (and that your son uses too many eating all the time). My perspective is different and is that because my kids are important to me I consider their future health to be important, therefore I use plates (and have no issue having my son spend a few moments washing his own plates if he uses a ton outside of normal dining times). I feel differently about this issue than you do. I don't think that means I am nasty--just that I see it differently; I truly am saddened by the impact such a large use of paper plates must cause (and truly had no idea it was so widespread). Sorry, I just am.
My 14 year old is reading over my shoulder. She says to spend time together by washing and drying dishes as a team--or by having your son wash up his snack plates while you cook. Can you tell how things work in our house by that comment

As far as recycling being difficult--I do hate that there are still areas where that is the case. It was that way where we lived in New Hampshire. You had to drop off your own recycling and it was only open a half day on Wednesday and a half on Saturday. You had to sort everything and tramp around in the mud at the center to deliver each item to the correct bin. To our family, it was important enough to do so--and we planned trips to grocery shop around the recycle times so as not to use extra gas to get there. We worked together to get it all delivered quickly too. If you want to do it it can be done. If not, okay; clearly we have different priorities. That is a part of life in this world--meeting people who think differently from one's self.

 

[allison443]

We never use them. We don't even keep them in our house. It's not that I have anything against it, but we just don't feel the need. We have a dishwasher, so it's not really that difficult to use real plates. We do keep the plastic utensils from takeout for if we need them. But we never buy disposable. The funny thing is, I have a feeling that if we had it around, we'd probably use it. So we just don't keep it around.

We are the same...we don't normally have paper plates around. In the summer, we have a few large barbecues/parties and I do buy paper goods then-but the thicker, patterned ones, not the thin paper ones. Usually after the party we have extras around and we do use those up. That's really the only time though. Honestly using paper plates all the time is not something I ever thought of...not being superior here. I do not care what anyone else does and I certainly don't think there's anything wrong with it

Do the posters that use paper plates use the thin paper ones? Those would be fine for a sandwich, bagel, snack but I don't think they would work well for the kinds of dinners we eat.

 

[SaraJayne]

SIGH--maybe I did not phrase things well enough. I was responding to YOU saying that it is because your kids are important to you and you want to spend time with them that you do not wash plates (and that your son uses too many eating all the time). My perspective is different and is that because my kids are important to me I consider their future health to be important, therefore I use plates (and have no issue having my son spend a few moments washing his own plates if he uses a ton outside of normal dining times). I feel differently about this issue than you do. I don't think that means I am nasty--just that I see it differently; I truly am saddened by the impact such a large use of paper plates must cause (and truly had no idea it was so widespread). Sorry, I just am.
My 14 year old is reading over my shoulder. She says to spend time together by washing and drying dishes as a team--or by having your son wash up his snack plates while you cook. Can you tell how things work in our house by that comment

As far as recycling being difficult--I do hate that there are still areas where that is the case. It was that way where we lived in New Hampshire. You had to drop off your own recycling and it was only open a half day on Wednesday and a half on Saturday. You had to sort everything and tramp around in the mud at the center to deliver each item to the correct bin. To our family, it was important enough to do so--and we planned trips to grocery shop around the recycle times so as not to use extra gas to get there. We worked together to get it all delivered quickly too. If you want to do it it can be done. If not, okay; clearly we have different priorities. That is a part of life in this world--meeting people who think differently from one's self.

Smart girl.

Or, another solution is, have a snack that doesn't require a plate!

Radical, I know.

 

[mhsjax]

Smart girl.

Or, another solution is, have a snack that doesn't require a plate!

Radical, I know.

Just curious, but what kind of snack do you suggest?

 

[NHdisneylover]

Smart girl.

Or, another solution is, have a snack that doesn't require a plate!

Radical, I know.

She IS a smart girl I was just ironing while she folded --we had a nice conversation Now she is back to sewing--a little hard to talk over the sound of the machine so I am back online for a few minutes

Good point about not using a plate I am thinking typical snacks in our house are fruit pieces (no plate ever needed), or sandwiches (DS inhales those way too fast to bother with a plate

 

[wvjules]

Just curious, but what kind of snack do you suggest?

Granola bar
apple
banana
fruit cup
yogurt
grapes
Peaches
pears
veggies (all on one plate for all children to share)
string cheese
pudding cups
jello cups
1/2 sandwich or whole sandwich
crackers
cookies