I could have titled this as just waste created by living daily, but wanted to focus it down a little more. I feel kind of like im the crazy one that sees this insane waste when eating at restaurants, wrappers, cups, drink carriers going right in the trash, billions per day. Its insanity if you think about it.
I’ve at least been never using cup lids or straws and never taking drink carriers when theyre offered (what a massive waste of cardboard!). Then most of the waste is at least paper from the bag and wrapper. Still not great. And yes, I know the solution would be “cook at home!” But that also wastes a lot of freshwater from dish washing, and sometimes it’s just nice to eat somewhere else.
I wonder if this is just something you notice as you get older. Then again older peiple probably waste the most, but I’m just guessing.
I’m not so sure eating out a restaurant that doesn’t use disposable utensils/dishes is really wasteful at all. The only difference i can think of is if you drove a long distance to get there. But it might actually be more efficient from an energy consumption perspective. You might have to heat up your oven just for a meal for a few people but they are going be cooking up a lot of stuff at once. I’d say the much bigger factors are a) are you wasting good and b) what kind of food are you eating.
All of the packaging needed for a lot of food at home as well, I feel like restaurants probably throw away less packaging comparatively with how much they get in bulk.
All of the plastic bottles for sauces, plastic containers for spices, meat and certain produce items that come packaged in plastic and styrofoam, plastic bags for bread and rice and pasta and junk food. Frozen items packaged in plastic in boxes that took energy to keep frozen before we spend energy to heat them within a minute or two, just because we’re too lazy to cook today.
Not to say that restaurants waste no packaging, but they’d use less given the volume of supplies they source, and likely prepare more in-house rather than buying pre-prepared.
I’d say restaurants are probably way more efficient in terms of waste and energy consumption than the average household. Cooking in bulk for a lot of people is better than a lot of people individually cooking for themselves.