memorial day picnic

The last weekend of May is our first official opportunity to sniff the spring weather and gear up for a summer playing in the sunshine. Memorial Day is the opening of the outdoor entertainment season.

Picnics, cook-outs, and camping all involve packing up part of our kitchen and transporting it to somewhere without kitchen appliances. With no stove to prepare meals, we buy ready-made, pre-packaged snacks and food. With no dishwasher to clean up afterwards, we eat with single-use disposable dinnerware. Plastic, polystyrene, and paper used just once get tossed into forest, park, and beach waste bins. Ironically, our chance to be most immersed in nature is when our behavior is the least out of sync environmentally.

In part 1 of this series we established that an efficient dishwashing machine is better than a regular human hand washing. We then concluded that durable are better than disposable plates, as long as a good dishwasher is handy. If we have to hand wash out in nature, would it be more ecological to use paper or plastic plates on picnics? Or better yet, biodegradable or compostable eating implements?

Here are some considerations for each option:

Biodegradable disposables

What does it really mean to be ‘green’?

Claiming that a throw-away, single-use product is “ecological” sounds like an oxymoron to me.

Which plant-based material is the most ‘natural’?

You are eating food off of a fork made out of what could’ve been food to someone else. We can’t digest glass, but we can chow down on corn, potato, or sugarcane. These crops may involve GMOs and Big Ag and bring up health and ethical issues.

Will you be packing your compost pile with you?

Even if you purchase it with good intentions for it to be composted, will you set up your outdoor meal only where composting facilities are provided? The National Park Service’s Composting 101 doesn’t mention setting up organic bins in their facilities. Simply chucking a corn-based fork into the woods doesn’t mean it will magically turn into mulch; more likely a park ranger will come along, shake his head at litterers, and throw your biodegradable utensil into the regular trash headed for the landfill. Search for composting facilities near your picnic.

Conventional disposables

Would you like paper or plastic?

Notice how back in the old days check-out clerks never asked if you wanted your groceries stored in Styrofoam? Even then they must’ve known how toxic polystyrene was. So the only two disposables we’ll consider are paper and plastic.

Is it flimsy or sturdy?

Flimsy paper with a wax coating is at the end of its usable life after one meal, since it can’t be washed, recycled, or composted. Ditto for flimsy plastic. Flimsy paper without wax coating can at least be starting material for the next campfire meal. Sturdy plastic is the worst option if used only once; the best option if reused.

How many meals will you be making on this outing?

If it’s just one, waxless paper is the most convenient. If this is a long camping trip, where every inch of space counts, add up how many disposable plates you’d need for each meal for each member, and you’ll see that one set of reusables means less volume, less waste, and not that much less convenience than multiple disposables.

Even if it was manufactured to be single-use, you can stretch out a disposable utensil’s life cycle by rinsing or wiping clean between uses: “think single purchase, not single use“. Treat sturdy plastic as if they were real silverware or china dishes, but without worries over an accident with a frisbee. If you really want to hang on to your set, pick out a bright color so they won’t get inadvertently tossed in the trash with other white or beige disposables.

Reusable dishes

Have your reusables already been used?

Check out garage sales or thrift stores to extend the embodied energy of your dishes. Kitschy patterns and mismatched sets don’t matter in the backwoods.

May your long weekend in nature be memorable!

 

CarrieABOUT THE AUTHOR

Carrie is an environmental educator, anthropologist, and translator. She took her passions for ecological, health, and women’s rights advocacy from the offices of Washington, D.C. to the streets of South America. Now in Colombia, she is slowly opening women’s eyes to the wonders of “la copita de luna” (Moon Cup) and Keepers.


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