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I’m 53 years old. I remember a time when fast food restaurants did not have any styrofoam containers at all. Drink cups were waxed paper cups, burgers were wrapped in wax paper. Cereal was contained in either a wax paper bag or a foil bag. Coffee stir sticks were small wooden sticks. Know those multi packs of single serve cereals? At one time they were small cardboard boxes with an easy to open was paper bag but today they’re plastic bags. Why can’t they return back to those packaging and containers?
it probably retain heat better than paper ,also it is more durable than a paper box.
also it does not get wet if there is liquid in the box,but it is not biodegradable
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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I don't know where you eat that uses styrofoam, but we just had burgers at the Habit Burger near us and the burgers were wrapped in paper, fries in paper containers, drinks in paper cups. Perhaps it's a regional thing, and some jurisdictions have banned styrofom.
I don't know where you eat that uses styrofoam, but we just had burgers at the Habit Burger near us and the burgers were wrapped in paper, fries in paper containers, drinks in paper cups. Perhaps it's a regional thing, and some jurisdictions have banned styrofom.
McDonald’s burgers switched back to paper or cardboard. They got ridiculous with their McDLT (look it up). Their breakfast meals still come on styrofoam. Many places still use styrofoam for drink cups though some have been switching back to paper. Many locally owned places that offer take out plate lunches are still styrofoam containers, like restaurant to go containers.
I too remember those old days, where the grease from fries would leak through the container, and then through the main bag. And paper-wrapped burgers arrived home luke-warm.
I don't drink coffee but I assume it's sold in Styrofoam to prevent scalding when provided super-hot enough that it's still hot after carrying it back home/work.
I wish they'd NOT changed from Styrofoam back to wax paper cups as my sodas & ice now arrive home cold, but watered down and sweating.
Paper costs a lot less then other materials, but probably has a negative effect on sales, so - like most things - this choice is driven by the marketplace.
I’m 53 years old. I remember a time when fast food restaurants did not have any styrofoam containers at all. Drink cups were waxed paper cups, burgers were wrapped in wax paper. Cereal was contained in either a wax paper bag or a foil bag. Coffee stir sticks were small wooden sticks. Know those multi packs of single serve cereals? At one time they were small cardboard boxes with an easy to open was paper bag but today they’re plastic bags. Why can’t they return back to those packaging and containers?
Styrofoam is still overused. Customers could write the manager to make suggestions of alternatives, and see if it helps (it might, if enough people did that). Otherwise, you could aim for a city ban on styrofoam.
The wood stir sticks, like chopsticks, are made from forests. For that matter, all those reams of Xerox paper the we take for granted when we photocopy entire books, or chapters from books, and thick documents, come from forests. So, while plastic stirrers aren't biodegradable, they don't result in forests being consumed for their manufacture. So...what to do? Recycle the stir sticks? Some coffee shops do that. They have recycle bins for the recyclable trash.
I remember when grocery stores didn't have plastic bags in the produce sections; only paper bags. That may seem better, right? Still, all paper products come from forests.
So, save your plastic produce bags, and reuse them; wash after use if necessary, and take them with you for grocery shopping, use them for your sandwiches if you take your lunch to work (if you don't WFH), and so on.
Tough choices. There are too many people on the planet.
I have the same ziplock bags from 2016. Wash and reuse. Even paper towels, if it was just water or something non-offensive, we dry them and reuse. Every plastic bag, whether produce or other, is reused.
Baking paper, aluminum foil, rubber bands, twist-ties---we reuse it all. And down here, it's practical too. Next time the store may not have it....
When we wash veg's, we save the water for the plants.
What bugs me is plastic containers designed to not be able to get the last 1/3 out. Like sunscreen, lotions, moisturizers. I cut them in half and get weeks more product out. Unless the plastic needs a reciprocating saw to cut in half.
Single use plastic bags finally banned here in NSW today.
Though not sure how we will get on if garbage bin liners are banned. When I was a child people would wrap the daily rubbish in sheets of newspaper before placing the bundles in the bin. Now people have so few newspapers another way will need to be found.
I’m 53 years old. I remember a time when fast food restaurants did not have any styrofoam containers at all. Drink cups were waxed paper cups, burgers were wrapped in wax paper. Cereal was contained in either a wax paper bag or a foil bag. Coffee stir sticks were small wooden sticks. Know those multi packs of single serve cereals? At one time they were small cardboard boxes with an easy to open was paper bag but today they’re plastic bags. Why can’t they return back to those packaging and containers?
That's what you see everywhere in Europe. So, it could be done, and doesn't mean it couldn't be durable or insulating.
We here in the US are just a bit slow with adapting eco friendly products and recycling.
Wrapping small items in big plastic boxes, in the stores, prevents theft.
I wish plastic shopping bags would be eliminated. I am sick and tired of seeing them hanging on the trees, bushes and fences, accumulating on banks of the rivers, flying on the streets.
Never saw a paper bag hanging on the tree. They just don't fly that easily.
Most paper bags are made of recycled products.
We here, overseas, use bags made of corn, that are biodegradable.
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