Eating outside of your home generally requires three things: food, food containers, and food utensils. For the majority of Americans, oil is involved in all three of these components. Food, especially processed food, requires tremendous amounts of oil to grow, process, and transport it. The plastic food containers we use are made from oil. Likewise, the great majority of our disposable forks, spoons, and knives are made from petroleum-based plastics.
The plastic forks and spoons we eat with are not recyclable, so what happens to all of these discarded utensils? They end up in our landfills, beaches, and oceans. Americans toss out enough plastic spoons, knives, and forks each year to circle the equator 300 times. Wanton wastefulness doesn’t stop with our flatware of course. According to the EPA, the United States produces approximately 220 million tons of garbage each year, the equivalent of burying more than 82,000 football fields six feet deep in compacted garbage. The National Recycling Coalition reports that, on average, every American throws away more than seven pounds of garbage a day.
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