| ▲ | BadHumans 4 days ago |
| Downsides to using glass and wood for takeout should be obvious and please don't put my soup in a paper takeout container. |
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| ▲ | trhway 4 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| >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. |
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| ▲ | ninalanyon 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | 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. | |
| ▲ | lazide 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | It’s more expensive and more of a hassle to deal with than plastic or plastic/wax coated paper. |
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| ▲ | chmod775 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| 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). |
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| ▲ | lazide 4 days ago | parent [-] | | 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’. |
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| ▲ | soulofmischief 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| 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. |
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| ▲ | numpad0 3 days ago | parent [-] | | 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 3 days ago | parent [-] | | 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. |
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| ▲ | johnisgood 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > my soup in a paper takeout container. There is an increasing use of paper takeout containers. Awful. |
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| ▲ | unethical_ban 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| What about the downside of takeout? |
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| ▲ | SauntSolaire 4 days ago | parent [-] | | Okay so now your solution involves banning takeout. Also leftovers are a thing. | | |
| ▲ | soulofmischief 4 days ago | parent [-] | | > Also leftovers are a thing. Are you familiar with glass? Leftovers are a solved problem. | | |
| ▲ | johnisgood 3 days ago | parent | next [-] | | 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 3 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | You're bringing glass containers with you to restaurants for your leftovers? | | |
| ▲ | soulofmischief 3 days ago | parent [-] | | 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 2 days ago | parent [-] | | 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 2 days ago | parent [-] | | 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 a day ago | parent [-] | | > 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. |
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