Why not start using regular silverware and plates instead that you have to wash? I would think that would be much lighter on the earth then using a product for a matter of seconds and then throwing away.

I grew up in south Georgia, and I can tell you that the forests there are hardly jewels. Langdale, a company who bought up farmer's property for a song during the depression has tons of acreage in tree farms, a ubiquitous site these days in the south. They can hardly be called forests, though, and the continuous and regular rows of trees are haunting. Many property owners are jumping on the bandwagon and even replacing their farmland with these eyesores.

DeToqueville talked of the real forests that were there in the early part of the 19th century when the south was full of giant old-growth longleaf pines, and as far as I know there are only one or maybe two stands of those left in the entire country. Shameful.

"Uh, how about bringing your own coffee mug?"

What's with the sarcastic tone here? Lecturing readers who are already eco-conscious really won't help anybody.

I know that Planet Smoothie is asking their customers to come up with a more eco-conscious cup for their locations. I remember writing to them and asking if it would be okay for me to bring a cup from home and they just fill it up in there.

In any case, I wish recycling was regulated. I used to work at a movie theater and we'd throw away so much stuff that was recyable. I'd try to recycle as much as I could but I knew when I wasn't there,so much was going to the landfills that didn't have to be there. I hated people throwing away the paper popcorn tubs. Why not let people bring them from home?

I could say more but in any case, I'm hoping the fast food chains will hop on the environmentally friendly bandwagon soon.

Its disingenuous to say that forests are dwindling by comparing modern forest cover to forest cover in colonial times. Compare it to more recent times, say, the early 20th century, and you will note that a great deal of reforestation has actually occurred.

Why not start using regular silverware and plates instead that you have to wash? I would think that would be much lighter on the earth then using a product for a matter of seconds and then throwing away.

Trying to convince her to start recycling has proved difficult, as well.

What about not eating fast food?

Maybe there should be an incentive for those who do bring in their own coffee mugs and silver service. I do get tire of picking up the trash from passerby drivers and I live far from the town. It may even help reduce waists of those who need to lose a few pounds. Why not eat at home as a family for a change!

uh, how about not even drinking coffee?

I concur with the dogmatic sentiments of Ross and Stephen and am prepared to take it even further.

How about not eating, period?

I am going to stop eating AND drinking. Soon, I will have the privilege of smugly boasting that I don't defecate or urinate, as well. After enjoying a brief bout of profound superiority, I will up the ante even further by ceasing all respiration, hence, no more O2 consumption or CO2 production.

You're hilarious. But look at the absolute environmental and social devastation that is brought on by fast food entering a society. Then you'll see why not to eat it.

I mean, I haven't eaten at a restaurant with a drive thru for a couple of years now. I have eaten Domino's and Subway and a few other places that probably are fast food, but that's rare.

I think that disposable packaging and the fast food industry walk hand-in-hand, and to do away with wasteful packaging we'd ultimately have to do away with fast food. A tiger can't change its stripes. So I concur with the posters who suggest not eating fast food. Your dollars and where you choose to spend them have more impact than anything else.

But then, hopefully the oil price run-up does away with this whole "convenience lifestyle" first. I'm so tired of being incessantly sold an "on-the-go" lifestyle.

While I agree with many of the objectives to such a campaign... I take my own mug and generally do not participate in the "throw-away" society we have created, the Dogwood Alliance is up to one of it exaggeration campaigns again. If you are going to use "Colonial Times" (exact date unknown), the majority of the deforestation that has occurred since that point is a result of agriculture. Now, the major reason we are loosing southern forests is development. Forestry related practices harvest trees for wood products and then MORE trees are grown... a new forest emerges that provides much needed early-successional habitat (a habitat type that is in serious decline throughout the Eastern deciduous forest). The real solution is in slowing or halting development...

Just another reason to BOYCOTT FAST FOOD.

Chris, those pine plantations are unnatural. While there might be some early-successional phase to it, by the time those pines are ten feet tall they are growing so close together that no light gets down to the understory and there is no ground shelter for native animals (foxes, rabbits, chipmunks, etc.). Normally, these pine barrens would have an understory of scrub oaks and palmettos (depending on where in the southeast they are grown--and away from the coastal plain pine barrens aren't even a natural forest type), but monoculture pine plantations do not. On top of this, fire would be a natural component of the healthy pine barren ecosystem, helping to clear out space between the trees and nurture the understory--but I guarantee you that the timber and pulp industries suppress natural wildfires.

McDonalds and KFC - another stone in their garden. Well, well, well. Ecologists can't do anything to destroy empires of fast-foods. When will be the end?

I'm sure that it's only a matter of time and they stop to work with all these paper cups. I feel in my blog about sustainable technology a lot of general understanding and more and more actions for protecting nature. I'm optimistic even today with all this waste! A better time will come.

I believe that change is entirely possible. Remember, 15-20 years ago, when all the fast food places would use styrofoam containers for everything? Then there was a public debate, public outrage and now there are only paper products.

What a massive difference this has made!

Let's continue to celebrate that victory, and then see what we did right there and apply it again here (not that it's an identical problem, but you know what i mean). THere is definitely hope here.

Restraunts could save soooo much money if they encouraged thier customers to be enviromentally friendly, by bringing thier own reuseable containers. I also agree with Courtney's comment about these restraunts needing to recycle. They should be fined for not offering it. Same goes with all retail , offices, and businesses.

Brian et al... A few points to consider:

1) No where in my previous comments did I make mention of pine plantations. We can argue ad naseum the suitability of pine plantations as habitat. The fact remains that there are trees on the site following silvicultural activity instead of an impervious surface, which was the point I attempted to make.
2) There are plenty of naturally occurring pure pine stands as analogs. While the majority result following fire, stem densities are generally much higher than your average pine plantation and these stands are still very important to some species of wildlife.
3) Please keep in mind that when you favor the elimination of any one of the habitat types that are common in the southern forested landscape that you are favoring one set of species over another. That is to say, there are species that use pine plantations, while the diversity may not match that of a mixed-mesoophytic hardwood forest, eliminating pine plantations would eliminate the habitat of that particular suite of species.

Overall, my point was not to get into an discussion over the merits of pine plantations. However, I wanted to point out that while the intentions of the Dogwood Alliance are good... I think they're misguided. Time and resources are not being optimally used. That said, I am sure that it is much harder for groups like the Dogwood Alliance to raise money by attacking the one thing that we are all guilty of (owning a "developed" space, i.e. a home) than by attacking "Big, Bad, Forest Industry".

Remember, many of the largest forest land owners in the southern US were at one time forest industries. At that time, you could be assured that trees were going to occupy that space. Now, because, among other things, some (and I am saying some, not ALL) environmental groups made it very expensive to own land with constant litigation. Now, forest industry has removed owning land from their business model and many acres are being developed into golf courses, retirement communities, walmarts, etc...

I realize I must quit now... sorry for the lengthy response

Ask them not to wrap your burgers. Especially if you're eating in. Using people's cups wont work. They are allowed thirt seconds per customer.Asking them to recycle, especially the cooking oil, is really the only viable answer. As far as making the company do something.
What WE can do is recycle this stuff ourselves. another problem with these places is the gas wasted while waiting in line.Talk about your hidden costs!
Look at if you really NEED to eat there or if you can go to Red Robin or someplace that makes their burgers twice as good and also serves boca products for us vegs.

I am an ecologist from way back, but most of your suggestions and people's comments sound like pretty small and insignificant gestures. Most are just ridiculous.
1) Bring your own coffee cup? They always get broken and they don't stay clean at work. Many articles have been published about germs building up in work coffee areas and mugs.
2) Ask them not to wrap your burgers? You are truly kidding right? Part of the issue is sanitary. The people doing the money aren't supposed to touch the food.
3) What about not eating fast food? Right! Obviously, you do not have teenage children. Nice try though.
4) encouraged thier customers to be enviromentally friendly, by bringing thier own reuseable containers? This is just not feasible! All containers are different sizes, etc.
I'd like to help you guys, but your efforts here are a total drop in the bucket that will have no effect at all.

If you don't know how to spell Quizno's, it means they're not big enough to be a major contributor, even if they're part of a conglomeration that is a major contributor.

These papers could be made from recycled content, but they're not because making them from trees is easier. The first thing we need to do is make cutting down trees expensive enough that companies look at recycled paper first.

And that means putting a carbon tax in place.

Deforestation happens when forests are converted to some other use such as agriculture or residential/commercial uses. Paper Cups are the least of our worries, in fact demand for forest products puts pressure on governments and society to keep those forests in sustainable production and not to convert them to some other use.

Now having said that, I don't uses forest products haphazardly. I don't print unless I have to and I use reusable cups when ever possible. using paper cups isn't a problem, it's building the new Restaurant where forests used to exist is the problem.

Sustainability is the word.

I'd like to make a point about paper alternatives; namely, that the most common are plastic and styrofoam. I know there's a bit of a debate about paper/plastic and which are more eco-friendly.

I'll stick to paper, even if it's not recyclable because it can be renewable. Petroleum products like plastic and styrofoam are not - or at least not in cheap, widely-available forms. Also, as a southerner myself, I'm very aware that most recyclable packaging doesn't get recycled. Some communities don't even have recycling programs.

My solution to this article is to not eat fastfood. The only fastfood I like is Subway (at least they have vegetables). The rest of it stopped appealing to me shortly after I stopped eating it; I noticed what it did to my body and thought "nasty".

@Brian: Chris was accurate in saying that the real issue comes with slowing or halting development. I can't accurately gauge whether he feels that this would be a positive or a negative, but it is the source of the issue. Fast food is merely a symptom of the larger problem.

@Surferess: Just because not eating fast food might seem crazy to you, you might not want to do it, or you'd find it too hard to stop doesn't mean it can't be done. It is a viable solution; stop buying the stuff and your kids have no choice but to go along. Hell, they'll (hopefully) be healthier because of it, too.

Anyways, back to the subject...
The problem, as I see it, is two-fold, and both parts of the issue need to be addressed. First, there is way too much packaging, not only in fast food restaurants, but pretty much across the entire consumer landscape. Second, the packaging is highly unsustainable—it's either synthetics (plastic) that will be in landfills for a million years or pre-consumer paper packaging.

I agree. Avoid eating at fast food rest. and when you do go to the ones that have eco-standards and process. If there aren't any of these around ask them to set some up or you will stop eating there. It's not like they're good for your health anyhow.

Imagine if everyone, including the Whole Foodies, would simply NOT take plastic forks, knives and napkins when taking take-out food home or back to the office where real silverware awaits???

Score another point for the fast food industry. Years ago they choked the earth with styrofoam which will never biodegrade (or if it does, it will only take a million years). Now they are deforesting parts of the country. Death burgers indeed, as the more enlightened of us call them; now there is even more reason to call them such.