Picnicware

One box of 60 forks, 60 spoons and 60 knives = About $25.00 or $0.14 per utensil.

A package of 8 forks, 8 spoons and 8 knives = About $8.00 or $0.33 per utensil.

The better appearance of Preserve utensils, with their variety of colors, and the ability to recycle your wares with the #5 plastics after use, instead of tossing them as trash.

You’ll be paying about $0.19 more per utensil than you would for traditional disposable plastic cutlery. However, with the festive colors and durable design of the Preserve cutlery, there’s more likelihood that you’ll reuse them — you can even throw them in the dishwasher for quick cleaning. If you do so just once, your costs will be about the same.

We’ve got some real issues when it comes to our plastic food ware: We use plastics made from an un-renewable resource — petroleum, and give them a lifetime of one use before dropping them in the garbage, where they work their way to landfills and linger for hundreds of years. Polystyrene, the chief ingredient for most plastic cutlery, is a primary example. The same stuff Styrofoam is based on, Polystyrene is difficult to recycle (and therefore few areas offer options to do such), and is produced by using the chemical Benzene, a known human carcinogen.

While there are some blatant problems with disposable plastic cutlery, it’s still an item most of us will use at one point or another (who wants to haul their steel utensils from home along for a hiker’s picnic?). There’s an easy solution to the dilemma: make use of the plastic already available, which not only helps us avoid using more resources, but also keeps plastics out of landfills. The Preserve Cutlery is made of 100% recycled plastic (free of questionable chemicals, like those in Polystyrene 6) and can be easily recycled after you’re done with it for use in future goods.

That disposable plastic fork they use to scoop up their potato salad at your picnic will likely outlive them by hundreds of years and be subsequently followed by many more like it, all of which will suck up more oil and put more chemicals into our surroundings.

The idea of making use of products already in existence (especially those made from limited resources) is a crucial one and it’s going to be key for future generations as they wrestle with even less resources and even more waste (thanks to us, unfortunately). Switches like these are a great way to get the ball rolling.