This is a radical suggestion. Ridiculous, really. But what if everyone made coffee at home? I mean, it’s not very trendy or hip but it is actually kind of, um, green.
Crazy, right?
No, but check this out. What if we made coffee in, like, a pot at home? In our kitchens? One could fill up an insulated container with coffee in the morning and drink from it all day. There might even be a cute little cup attached that could be used and washed and used again. There would be no use for little plastic lids anymore, or little plastic stir sticks, or whatever.
Somebody ought to work on that.
Oh wait, didn’t we used to do that years ago?
Some of the best ideas for reducing waste may be from back when all meals were cooked at home, fruits and vegetables came from the yard and take-out hamburgers were wrapped in paper. What home-cooked meals lacked in convenience they made up for in many other ways, including thrift and near zero-waste. Drinks didn’t routinely come with straws because people had better manners than to walk around in public sucking on candy-flavored coffee. There was a Thermos for coffee and a canteen for water and both got washed at the end of the day.
Instead of encouraging alternatives, the focus is currently on banning every convenience of modern life. The Legislature is all about bans these days. Bans on single-use plastic. Bans on straws. Bans on take-out containers. Bans on plastic forks.
Pretty soon we’re all going to be eating at home or being like Uncle Louie who carries around a metal camping fork in his pocket because you never know if somebody is going to bring cake and Uncle Louie wants his cake.
Everyone wants their cake. They want to eat chow fun and fried rice from food trucks but that’s tricky if there’s no single-use utensil involved. They want to buy pre-made meals at the store but how does one carry that home without Styrofoam or plastic involved? Hemp handbag? They want to buy plate lunch but everything about the way that gets served is threatened by a ban.
Plastic became the food and drink holders of choice because, as people got busier, tossing away something became easier and preferable to storing it and washing it after each use. It’s how people eat when they’re on a tight budget. It’s how people eat when they’re busy.
Who’s not busy and on a budget? Oh, the people over there eating on real china with silver spoons. Everybody else is going to have to deal with the inconveniences of all the bans or start feeding the family like it’s 1975.
Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.
