Avoid Plastic Utensils By Carrying Your Own - Wrapped In Recycled Cases
by April Streeter, Gothenburg, Sweden on 06. 5.08
Utensil cases, of recycled materials or otherwise, may not be at the top of anybody's list of shopping necessities. But once you start to contemplate the vast amounts of plastic and wood made into cutlery that gets used only a few minutes (3 minutes is average) and then landfilled for eons, toting your own starts to make more sense. We've covered the Carry Your Own Cutlery (CYOC) movement before. And ten-year-old company To-Go Ware has been importing bamboo utensils - fork, knife, spoon, and chopstick sets - for a few years. Now they've got a full line of cutlery cases made from recycled plastic bags, from Indian NGO Conserve.
A small army of workers in the streets of India's New Delhi collect pounds of discarded bags each day. The bags are washed, sorted, cut and then heated and pressed into plastic fabric to make the cases. Though To-Go Ware doesn't carry them, Conserve also makes a line of colorful carry bags - view a video on the labor-intensive process of plastic bag recycling after the jump.
Via ::To-Go Ware, for Conserve bags visit Original Good
See also: Bring Your Own Chopsticks Movement Gains Traction In Asia, B.Y.O.C. - Chopstick Reuse Ramping Up In Japan
I mean, I applaud the effort, and I like the recycled case, but why do you have to go buy newly-made cutlery?
Do people not already have knives, forks and spoons that they can use?
I agree with jimgreasy, but I think the plastic bag case is a good idea just because I can stick it in my purse or bag. It keeps the cutlery away from all the other crap I throw in my bag, including loose change and money. I realize that i could keep them together with a rubber band and put them into a small plastic bag, but why not help the global economy just a little bit?
Hmmm,
I wonder if a deposit for plastic bags would be of any use? Like the 5c deposit on bottles and cans. You would have people scouring the landfills for them. A penney a bag? a few cents per ounce?
I wonder if there's a raw material incentive for these things beyond some specialty items.
vsk
I must agree with jimgreasy above. These utensils do seem unnecessary to one capable of outside the box thinking. This is an example of a product one buys to fill a need that doesn't really exist. I'd be curious to hear the other side of the argument from anyone who might own a set of these, though.
A confession. I bought lunch at a supermerket today to eat while getting my car inspected. Realizing I was carrying only a folding knife in my bag I had to grab a plastic fork. I usually use the metal utensils I keep at my desk at work.
Send the plastic bags to me for my projects here in the us!
Actually, my husband and I each own a set of these and we use them not only at home (a nice alternative to putting metal in your mouth!) but also can keep them in carry-on when we have to fly to the US, which unfortunately is more often than we'd like.
Try taking metal cutlery through airport security!
"Reduce" is the most important of the chasing arrows - so if you take your own cutlery you are reducing buying yet another product. However, the carrier is still made of plastic. Plastic never biodegrades, and therefore at some point, we're going to have to deal with that problem. Reusable bags should be made out of a non polypropylene fiber (no plastics) - preferably something that is organic and fast growing (hemp, bamboo, or cotton).
With regards to the new discovery of a compound of microbes that will "eat" plastic - what is going to "eat" that microbe? We're just exchanging one problem for another, until we imitate nature. In nature everything that dies (or is used up), becomes food for something else.
On my website sustainableBags.NET, we sell and encourage the use of organic and fairtrade totes - no plastics, no excuses. Yes, reusing and recycling are very important, but reducing is tops!
Hello, I'm searching for a good online store to buy some collapsible eco chopsticks. I live in Japan, but I suppose I could ship international. Sadly, my wife and I can't seem to find anything good on the Japanese side of the internet. Anyone have any suggestions?