6/29/2019 How bringing your own cutlery helps solve the plastic crisis

JUNE 29, 2019 Unknown author

How bringing your own cutlery helps solve

the plastic crisis

This article was created in partnership with the

National Geographic Society.

Plastic cutlery is everywhere, and most of it can be used only once.

Billions of forks, knives, and spoons are thrown away each year. But
like other plastic items—such as bags and bottles—cutlery can take
centuries to break down naturally, giving the plastic waste ample time
to work its way into the environment.

The Ocean Conservancy lists cutlery as among the items “most deadly”
to sea turtles, birds, and mammals, and alternatives have proven
particularly di cult to come by, though not impossible.

A logical solution is to carry your own, but you’ll likely draw a few
stares. For centuries, though, it would have been a faux pas to not
travel with a set.

“You would come with a little carry case, and it would be your own
personal knife and spoon,” says Sarah Co n, who curated the 2006
exhibit Feeding Desire: Design and the Tools of the Table, 1500-2005 at
the Cooper Hewitt design museum in New York.

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6/29/2019 How bringing your own cutlery helps solve the plastic crisis

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Plastics 101

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6/29/2019 How bringing your own cutlery helps solve the plastic crisis

Toting your own eating implements was not only a logistical must—
none were usually provided—but also helped avoid illness. “If you
come with your own,” explains Co n, “you don't have to worry about
someone else's germs in your soup.” What you ate with, she said, was
also a status symbol of sorts. “It was a little like a pocket watch.”

National Geographic is committed to reducing

plastics pollution. Learn more about our non-
pro t activities at natgeo.org/plastics. Learn
what you can do to reduce your own single-use
plastics, and take your pledge.

Cutlery for the masses was commonly made of wood, stone, or shells.
More ornate sets could be made of gold or ivory, or even be collapsible
for traveling light. By the early 1900s sleek and rust-resistant stainless
steel started to make an appearance. By World War II, an even newer
material had worked its way into the cutlery mix: plastic.

‘Disposable kings’
At rst, plastic cutlery was considered reusable. Chris Witmore, a
professor in archaeology and classics at Texas Tech University,
remembers his grandmother washing her plastic tableware. But as the
post-war economy boomed, the frugal habits instilled by the Great
Depression and an agrarian history faded.

“After the mid-twentieth century overabundance comes to de ne how

the majority live,” says Whitmore. That, he says, gave rise to a “throw-
away culture.”

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6/29/2019 How bringing your own cutlery helps solve the plastic crisis

View Images

Making plastic utensils bright and poppy contributed to also making them
very popular, historians say.
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Image by Hannah Whitaker, National Geographic
6/29/2019 How bringing your own cutlery helps solve the plastic crisis

“The Americans were the disposable kings,” says Co n. Among other

inventions was the plastic spork, which The Van Brode Milling
Company patented in 1970. But Co n said the French a nity for
picnics also helped spur the single-use boom.

Designer Jean-Pierre Vitrac, for example, invented a plastic picnic tray

that had a fork, spoon, knife, and cup built right into it. You’d break
them o to use, and just throw everything away after you were done.
The sets were even available in bright colors—which Co n said also
helped make plastics popular.

That marriage of culture and convenience led to companies such as

Sodexo, a French rm that's one of the world’s largest food-service
providers, to turn to plastic. “[Convenience] really made this whole
disposal space become part of our everyday life,” says Judy Panayos,
Sodexo’s senior director of sustainability in supply management.

Today, the company buys 44 million disposable utensils per month in

the U.S. alone. Globally, plastic cutlery is a $2.6 billion business.

But convenience has come at a cost. Like many plastic items, utensils
often nd their way into the environment. According to beach-cleanup
data compiled by the non-pro t 5Gyres, utensils are the seventh most
commonly collected plastic item.

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The Story of Plastic

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UTENSILS
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Plastic utensils were introduced in the 1940s but did not start being
mass produced until the 1950s. A decade later, along with the growth of
the fast-food industry, they became widely used.

Single-use utensils can take up to 1,000 years to decompose.

Most plastic utensils are made of polystyrene, which can release toxic
chemicals when heated.

PS

Usage

Recycling

Did You Know?

In the United States, more than 100 million plastic utensils are used
every day.

Their size, inconsistent materials, and shape make them more di cult
to recycle.

France is the rst country to ban plastic cutlery, plates, and cups. The
ban takes e ect in 2020.

MONICA SERRANO, NGM STAFF; KELSEY NOWAKOWSKI

Sources: Plastic Pollution Coalition; Ministry of Ecological and

Solidarity Transition, France;

Polymer Plastics; 5 Gyres

“Food and beverage disposables are overwhelmingly at the top of the

list,” said Anna Cummins, executive director of 5Gyres, intentionally
highlighting the whole category.

She argues that environmentalists’ recent focus on individual items—

whether bags, straws, or otherwise—isn’t working and that the sector
needs to be addressed more holistically. “A focus on single products,
while it's important, is not going to move the needle to the degree that
we need.”

Reducing waste
In January, a Hi Fly plane took o from Lisbon, bound for Brazil. As on
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the Portuguese airline’s other journeys, the attendants served drinks,
6/29/2019 How bringing your own cutlery helps solve the plastic crisis

food, and snacks—but with a twist. According to the airline, this was
the rst passenger ight in the world to be completely free of single-
use plastics.

Hi Fly used a range of replacement materials, from paper to plant-

based disposables. The cutlery was made from reusable bamboo, which
the airline planned to take back to its catering facilities and wash—as
many as 100 times.

The ight, the airline said, was its rst step toward eliminating all
single-use plastics by the end of 2019. Others have followed suit;
Ethiopian airlines marked April’s Earth Day with a plastics-free ight
of its own.

Cutlery is part of the broader anti-plastics backlash. In 2016, France

was the rst country to ban plastic dinnerware. People around the
world are experimenting with alternatives to plastic that range from
potato starch and areca leaves to grain-based edible cutlery.

Sales of such plastic substitutes remain relatively low, often hindered

by higher costs and sometimes questionable environmental bene ts.
So-called bioplastic options, for example, made from plant-based
materials, can require speci c conditions to break down, and even they
take energy and water to produce. But the market for them and for
other forms of biodegradable cutlery is growing.

PLANET OR PLASTIC?

Three things you can do to be part of the solution:

1. Carry reusable cutlery.

2. If you use disposable cutlery, make sure it's made of a biodegradable

or compostable material.

3. Choose to eat at establishments that don't use plastic utensils.

A new take on single use

A host of companies are creating utensils from plant-based materials,
including wood. Some of them source materials from fast-growing
trees like birch or bamboo; Canadian brand Aspenware includes excess
wood from the lumber industry in its utensils.

A line of disposable wooden cutlery called Clickeat is one example. A set

of thin utensils (fork, knife, and an optional spoon) that’s linked at the
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handle, it snaps apart into individual instruments that can be disposed

of after they’re used.

“It's compostable and biodegradable,” says founder Steven Adler.

Adler rst realized the extent of the plastic waste issue about 10 years
ago, while sur ng with a friend in Chile. The beach was covered in
plastic litter. Alarmed, Adler started talking with others about how to
best address the issue.

“Everyone was talking about plastic bags and bottles, but no one was
talking about utensils,” he remembers. Setting out to design an
alternative, they founded their company, Simplo.

While Adler sees Clickeat as preferable to many other options out there
—especially bioplastics—he insists he’s not trying to keep people from
nding other solutions, like carrying their own cutlery; he merely
wants to provide better options.

“Our goal is not to replace reusable things,” he said. “We're trying to

rede ne the concept of single use.”

In China, environmentalists have campaigned for people to carry their

own chopsticks. The online marketplace Etsy has a whole section
dedicated to reusable cutlery. And the BYO cutlery movement appears
to be gaining steam.

“I carry them around in my backpack,” says Panayos of her reusable

cutlery.

Sodexo has more broadly committed to phasing out single-use plastic

bags and polystyrene foam food containers, as well as making straws a
“by request” item.

But Panayos says plastic utensils remain particularly vexing to replace

on a large scale. Problem spots include facilities that have limited
dishwashing capabilities and places like prisons where more pliable,
less dangerous, options are necessary.

Says Chris Whitmore, the Texas Tech professor: “When plastics turn
out to be everywhere and ingested by everything, the only direction one
can go is reduction."

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