Take Out Your Bags

2011-05-17 · Filed under intertwingled

It’s been quite a while since I last posted. The kids have kept me quite busy. They are 2 1/2 now and very talkative and busy! More on them in some other post. For now, I want to post something short.

One thing I have been doing recently is taking my reusable shopping bags to restaurants when I get take-out, especially for lunch. Many of the wait-staff look at me funny when I ask them to put the food in my own bag, but these are the same establishments that are moving to potato-starch plastic and biodegradable utensils. I am just getting them used to it, blazing a trail.

I figure, if it works at the grocery store, why not at restaurants? I have probably saved about 300 plastic or paper bags in the last 3 years or so just from my lunch take-outs alone. (Yeah, I know, maybe I should bring lunch from home more.) The reusable bags are already in my car ready for the next grocery trip, so I just have to remember to bring them with me into the restaurant.

As for the biodegradable utensils, my company doesn’t have receptacles for them. So, I bring them home each Friday and put them in our green bins. Our city just switched waste service providers in January, and now we all get green bins for garden waste, old food, and for biodegradable things like this. Very convenient. I just quickly rinse them after lunch to prevent them from stinking by the time I get home.

I got a metal knife, fork, and spoon from the company cafeteria and keep them at my desk. So now, I get the take-out with no plastic bag, I eat it with the biodegradable utensils or with these metal ones if it didn’t come with them, and the food and packaging are biodegradable. It now happens a few times a week that I don’t have to put anything in the garbage bin after lunch!

Zero-waste lunch. Delicious!