i'm struggling with this.
our caterer has offered us disposable plates and flatware. not like paperplates. nice disposable with a silver ring around the edge. what's great is this is included in our catering quote, so in our eyes, it's pretty much free. awesome.
the problem is that this goes against my attempt at being as green & eco-friendly as possible. disposable things are not eco-friendly. i did find some biodegradable cups online which made me feel a bit better about those. the most eco-friendly thing to do, however, is to rent plates and flatware from a rental company. great because we wouldn't be throwing anything away. bad because it's an additional cost & leads to all kinds of other questions: how many plates do you actually need? is there a formula for that? what if you ran out of plates?
now the cost is outrageous. it's 35 cents a plate. however, i think everything is about 35 cents (glasses, flatware, desert plates, etc.), so that can quickly add up. i keep thinking that to keep it simple and less expensive i should just stick with the disposable.
i had the thought that maybe i could possibly find them cheaper. what if i went to a flea market or thrift store & was about to find plates? they would be mismatched, of course, but i think that could be really interesting.
thoughts? opinions?
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
disposable?
nicole Wednesday, April 2, 2008
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2 Responses:
Perhaps the cost to rent could be our wedding present to you? Just a thought. I haven't done the math, of course. But you could email me an estimate.
(If you ran out, people could share. You know, people in the same family and couples. Also, if you tell them how many people are coming, they should be able to tell you how many of each you'll need.)
Well we have gobs of plates from our various place settings that we've had over the past x years. LOL You're more than welcome to them, we were going to donate them.
Honestly, my opinion is that while it's great to be green, making a one-time decision like this isn't going to make a huge impact either way. It's much better to choose not to use paper plates on a daily basis, than to worry about one day of paper use, know what I mean? And the hard part about "being green" is that there aren't always great solutions either way. If you don't use disposable, then you are expending water and putting detergent into the environment to get the permanent plates clean.
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