Depends on the use. I’m one who wipes grease away with paper towels to avoid the plumber. I also deploy paper towels for napkins for casual meals. Beyond those, cloth all the way.
For large parties, paper plates. Otherwise, washable “real” plates. I hate plastic.
For any use other than takeout away from home, I use “real” washable chopsticks. Maybe some are plastic…
Pretty sure that’s right, generally.
I should also say that what little paper we use is generally used for starting heating fires and priming chimneys.
I tend to use what I already have.
I got plastic plates for camping, so will keep using them. Paper plates are a pain anyway. You’ll need a new one for a 2nd helping…
But I won’t buy more of them
Kitchen paper is difficult to find, so I use toilet paper.
Grease left in pots is minimal (I mostly stir fry and)or make stews and curry). Any left over gets boiled up with rice for the dogs.
Steaks & chops go on the bbq, so no (or hardly) any fat residue either
Chop sticks…
I’m happy if I can manage to get a spoon in Indian and other Asian restaurants. They eat rice dishes with knife and fork here .
This is such an important observation. Over time we shifted from cotton to linen. Cotton takes a vast amount of water to grow, uses inordinate amounts of pesticides (except for organic growers), and generally uses a lot of bleach. We use ceramic plates and try not to use plastic anything. We use napkin rings with our linen napkins so that the napkins can be used multiple times. We also use that technique of heating FOG to pour it off for eventual disposal. We use those biodegradable sponges and fiber scrub pads and wood handled natural fiber scrub brushes. The sponges and pads go in the DW for cleaning.
We joined Ridwell. They recycle for actual reuse many of the things that regular recycling will not take, like plastic film which is converted into decking material. Regardless of what you use, reuse is an impactful practice.
On the thought of cradle to grave analysis, I heard a piece on NPR comparing the total environmental impact of buying an older car versus a new EV, and the results were surprising. I note that an executive at BMW has stressed the environmental benefits of refreshing and continuing to use older cars.
Nobody ever said it was simple. A lot of things worth doing/trying aren’t.
CCE
(Keyrock the unfrozen caveman lawyer; your world frightens & confuses me)
25
Your example came to mind as I read the original question, because I had followed the pro/con arguments closely re disposable diapers for the 6 near-continuous years we were diapering the kids (we got a year+ break between kid3 being toilet trained and kid4’s arrival).
I guess that I more or less get tossing out disposables at a gut level, but really don’t know what kind of comparative environmental impact my dishwasher has. Using gas-heated hot water, some amount of electricity, dumping bleach and peroxides and several kinds of sulphonic acid compounds into the local ground water (we’re on septic), and the water usage itself. Ditto clothes washer for the kitchen towel vs. paper towel question.
The above said, we only use disposable paper plates when camping, which go in the campfire, and don’t really use plastic forks etc. at all. We use washable ironwood chopsticks at home but don’t tote them to restaurants, so we’re using the provided disposable sticks there.
I tend to use regular kitchen towels for liquid cleanups on countertops and table surfaces but paper towels for floor spills and raw meat juices. Also paper for bad stainers (e.g., pomegranate juice mess).
Being on septic I’ve been schooled to be careful about cooking grease disposal, so I use a silicone spatula to really rim out pans and like others mention, keep the grease in the freezer to put into the trash once full. But I don’t feel the need to go over the pan with a paper towel as the spatula leaves not more than a few microns-thick film behind.
CCE
(Keyrock the unfrozen caveman lawyer; your world frightens & confuses me)
26
Imagonna argue the glass recycle thing, but agree about the degradation suffered by plastic, paper fiber, etc. on repeated recycling. Other than color admixture, glass shouldn’t suffer any degradation from being recycled.
What I mean is, if you are recycling colorless clear glass, what you end up with even after 100 cycles should be the same quality as virgin glass. If you’re recycling mixed colored waste glass, it will of course end up as some muddled brown or whatever color, but the glass will still be good as ever from a performance standpoint.
I just ordered a new clutch (safety) switch for my 25 year old work. It still runs great, just needs a little TLC now and then. It ain’t pretty, but it does the job!!
ETA: I actually just got back from the landfill where they process my green waste into mulch that other people can use. I did a BIG trimming of my hedges and trees. I unloaded it at the landfill/recycling center where they have this monster shredding machine that eats trees and spits out mulch. I’m really happy all of that green waste gets a second life.
Yes! Do this all the time. I have a stock of to-go containers that I rotate. If one get’s too ratty, I’ll recycle it. Same with plastic produce bags that I bring to the store / farmers market.
“Nowadays I often wonder about why I’m using water to clean things before putting them in the recycling.”
Our recycling gets picked up every two weeks, and we’ve found if we don’t rinse/wash it out, it attracts ants other pests. I once scared a huge rat out of our recycling bin. It startled me pretty badly, too!
When you are done with your meal you roll it up and put the napkin ring on it. The napkin ring needs to have your name, initials, or some other unique identifier. When the table is set for the next meal, your place is set with your same napkin. It is something our family picked up over a century in shipboard ward rooms where the napkins were generally washed weekly.
I’m on septic and am fanatic about putting the least down there as possible. All grease that I can get off goes into the trash. Same with all roughage peels etc from all vegetables. I try to limit it to cooked things that are fairly soft. I had my tank inspected recently and it looks pretty good, and I want to keep it that way. The one thing you never want to risk is having a major septic tank problem; at worst, that can leave you with a $25,000 bill or so to replace the tank.
This thread reminds me of the old paper vs. plastic thing at the supermarket. So many chose/choose paper thinking it is more environmentally friendly. Actually, the energy/environmental footprint of a paper bag is significantly larger than of a plastic bag due to the huge amount of energy needed to make paper, and the water pollution created by paper mills.
Even a reusable bag may not be better, depending on how many times one actually uses it. You have to remember to take it to the store.
Speaking of which, I’ve recently discovered those rectangular semi-hard reusable “bags” and find they work quite well, the main reason being you can get so much more into them because they facilitate neat and efficient packing. I usually self-check, so I just put the thing in the scale, scan, and pack everything right there on the spot. One lift into the cart and another into the car. Easy peasy.
I’m with @Meekah, no way cat puke or other animal messes are going to be done with washable cloths. I should use a cloth more often than I do, but it’s also a pain to clean them, ring them out and wait for them to dry. I suppose this says nothing good about my ability to avoid messes, but it’s not always practical. At least paper towels can break down faster, and you can by less processed paper products.
I already use plates 99% of the time, and I don’t even really use my dishwasher. Folks can do all the math and tell me the water, the energy usage for dishwashers, and the detergent have a bigger impact, but just eating off paper plates unless you have to seems crazy. If I do use disposable, it will be something paper-based and not those fancy plastic chinet type sets. The less hard, non-recyclable plastic the better.
I use washable chopsticks, even some of the thicker, better looking bamboo chopsticks. They get disposed of when they start to warp and go bad. Disposable chopsticks really are just for when I’m on the go.
This is where those promises of compostable takeout cutlery and dishware can help. I wish more options like that were available to average consumers and not just businesses, but I have yet to see them in the stores. To be fair, I haven’t looked for disposable plates in years, so I could just be out of touch.
I’m sorry, I’m missing something here. How do rings enable multiple uses?
How do you dispose of the cooled FOG? I live with greasetraps, so my FOGgy wipes go in the trash.
Not to me. I’m more of the kind that uses and fixes things until they can’t be fixed, then replaces. I’m fortunate to hold the belief that newer isn’t necessarily better, and that technology needs to offer improvement in something more than conformity or self-congratulation.
This is why (in general) I believe a long lasting cookware is more environmental even if the initial construction is not. For example, even if a nonstick pan is “green” design, their environmental impact can be greater if I need to replace them every 2 years than a cast iron pan that last for 20 years.
As you’ve already put your finger on, it depends on what you replace X with. If one replaces a PTFE pan (which, to fulfill its promise, MUST be replaced in short order) with a new pan that will last and perform for decades, the choice to me is abundantly clear.
We are all victims of the new + convenience + old-must-be-worse dumbthink driven by the churning of rank consumerism.
Just to be clean. I am not bashing nonstick cookware. I am just saying that it is difficult to claim nonstick cookware are environment when they need to replaced more frequently.
'Need" is an elastic term, and illustrative of the problem. Do we need to replace nonstick when it dips to 90% of its original performance? If the dip is to 50%, and that’s still “better” than carbon steel…, replace?
We need to stop being slaves to “NEW!”: and replaceable/disposable.
I should use a cloth more often than I do, but it’s also a pain to clean them, ring them out and wait for them to dry. I suppose this says nothing good about my ability to avoid messes, but it’s not always practical. At least paper towels can break down faster, and you can by less processed paper products.
