Why would you rather pollute the environment with more thrown away plastic crap than spend 20 seconds by a sink to clean a fork? Even if you recycle the plastic fork (few people bother to, since the fork is already associated with food waste they throw it into the trash along with the food waste) the energy cost of recycling that plastic is still inexcusable when you could have avoided the entire thing by simply owning your own fork.

Plastic is largely a byproduct from oil/gas processing... as long as we're using as much oil/gas as we do, plastic usage (even disposable) is already additional use out of the system. If it weren't composite plastic, it would be landfill sludge anyway.

Now, reducing the consumption of oil/gas could reduce plastic as a byproduct and increase costs in which case the market would self-correct.

If that's the direction you want to approach the situation from, then consider that by allowing the byproducts to be commercialized you are in effect subsidizing the oil and gas, and thereby encouraging their continued use.

You should also consider the unique harm plastic waste in particular does to wildlife.

I'm not saying it isn't a problem... the larger issue of littering in general, and wildlife preservation are huge to me. We have very well managed waste disposal sites, and do a lot of subsidizing recycling efforts.

My point was that if you aren't littering, then the net cost to the environment isn't such a huge thing. I'm also not a fan of government subsidies in general. Your point really isn't a subsidy, it's a means of greater use, which is generally considered a good thing. Unless you'd rather have more environmental waste that isn't used for any secondary purpose.

I'd love to see more/better efforts with regards to wildlife conservation, not littering etc. I like to do road trips while on vacation. Seeing the shear amount of litter on roadways, in the mountains and everywhere but a proper trashcan that will get disposed of reasonably is upsetting. Frankly, I think that getting society as a whole to respect their environment and other people's property (littering and vandalism) would go further to improving things than not.

‘Free’ plastic cutlery is being rolled into the price of the dinner, for one. Some people also pay for garbage disposal.

Then there is the ecological issue of using and disposing of cutlery and plates after one use. Why would the harm of that need to be explained in 2019? Most household waste in the US goes to landfills.

Another issue is personal health. Plastic is continually emitting tiny amounts of toxic chemicals and leaching plasticizers and other endocrine disrupters/suspected carcinogens into the air and anything it comes into contact with. This differs from the glass and ceramic dishes that I purchase for use at home.

Because plastic forks break and our cutlery is nice.

Seriously we (family of 5) run the dishwasher most nights - got the kids trained to do their part, so it's not much more work.

Do you like throwing away plastic wantonly?

Why on Earth would you not?

Nevermind the trash you're promoting the production of by accumulating. You already have a reusable, probably more comfortable set of cutlery which has paid itself over a thousands times. As long as you have it, you don't need plastic stuff: no need to use it, no need to hoard it, no need to rely on it – 'cause you already have all the stuff you need at a moment's notice.

Doing the dishes is easy. The fact that I have to rack my head about which kind of plastic is reusable and which isn't, then have to separate the two – knowing that I'm throwing the kind of stuff away that will cause noticable damage to the environment when compounded per capita – seems like such a goddamn mess compared to having a ceramic plate ready for use.

Yet I do. I have some free plastic cutlery in the kitchen right now, yet not ten minutes ago I washed up a ceramic plate and a metal fork. With my hands.

There is a dishwasher but I'm using it to store post and as a wine rack.

<3 for the idea to be using my dishwasher as a wine rack.. I despise wasting time waiting for dishes to wash in a dishwasher; noting also the time it takes to fill it before you run it can leave you without your favorite glass/dish!

Because it's better for the environment. Washing dishes is barely any effort. Do you have no concern for the planet at all?

I don't care enough about the infinitesimal impact of an individual using plastic silverware to want to go wash a fork, no. I don't feel the externalities of the decision come anywhere close to outweighing the convenience. Convenience being the whole point of food delivery.

I keep all the extra cutlery and napkins I get in a drawer and reuse them. Haven't had to buy paper towels in a long time.

> Convenience being the whole point of food delivery.

True, but there's a difference between saving upwards of 30 minutes cooking time vs saving 30 seconds washing a plate...

1 the feeling it's much better 2 enormous waste (multiply that by the people in your country)

Once, when I though that people might regularly use plastic I thought: "if that's not a mental health red flag I don't know what it is"

Maybe the "mental health red flag" is ascribing mental illness to people who use plastic

I sincerely wrote that to make the PP author to reflect to his situation, but of course read it as you prefer

Free only if you willfully ignore obvious externalities.