The Environmental Ethicist-Round TwoShalom and welcome to Round 2 of the “Environmental Ethicist.” This week I will address another question from a reader, but one which I think has information and implications for all of us. Feel free to send additional environmental queries my way, and from time to time, I will attempt to answer them.
Richard Goldman from Maryland writes:
We serve over 20,000 meals a year here at the Pearlstone Conference & Retreat Center. Our options are to use disposable plastic, disposable, recycled paper or use china plates and then wash them. Clearly the plastic isn't a good choice. We are told the paper is "biodegradable" or can be recycled; that's better. Washing dishes runs our well pump and treatment plant (using electricity), and adds pollutants to our waste which then must be chemically treated. That isn't so good either. It seems like the paper is our best environmentally sound option but others disagree. What do you think?
Richard,
This is an excellent question and a very tangible dilemma which not only affects you and other individuals in the service sector, but also each and every one of us who sometimes choose to use disposables around the house. First, I must start by qualifying my response as somewhat limited. What I present here is more of a basic approach; the specifics of your situation can more clearly addressed through professional consultation and site visits.
In order to begin, I contacted Michael Oshman at the Green Restaurant Association. The GRA helps restaurants and their customers become more environmentally sustainable in ways that are convenient and cost-effective. He offered some general guidelines to follow, whether you are serving 2 people or 20,000.
First, as a general rule of thumb, disposable dishes will always have more environmental impact than reusables. One not only needs to consider the direct impact, i.e. the disposable dishes in your garbage and therefore in the landfill, but also the impact of the manufacturing, packaging and delivering of the products for one-time use. It would be difficult to put an exact figure on the amount of resources, or specifically water, needed to produce one paper plate, but, according to Oshman, it is more than the water needed to clean one reusable plate.
The second consideration addresses your concern of the impact on your water system. Again, the electricity used to run a load of dishes is far less than the electricity used in manufacturing and shipping the disposable products. As for the pollutants which then must be chemically treated, Oshman suggests not releasing them in the first place. There are plenty of non-toxic cleaning products that works as effectively as conventional products. These earth friendly cleaners do not necessitate chemical treatment, thereby alleviating that concern.
The third factor is your appliances. Upgrading to more energy efficient appliances drastically reduces the impact of running your dish washer, refrigerator, oven, or any other piece of equipment you may have in your kitchen. Look for the energy star label when shopping for new appliances.
Hopefully, this is enough information to get you started, and calling in some experts down the road will be even more useful. As for the rest of us who don’t serve 20,000 meals each year, we can still follow the three basic guidelines: reusable is better than disposable; use earth-friendly cleaning products; upgrade to energy efficient appliances. As we enter into the holiday of Pesach, we may find ourselves tempted to resort to disposables for the sake of convenience. But try to keep these principles in mind, so that our religious practices and environmental ideals need not collide. Have a redemptive and liberating Pesach.
Teva Learning Center
307 7th Ave Suite #900
New York, NY 10001
teva@tevacenter.org
www.tevacenter.org
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Want More?
For more info head over to the Green Restaurant Association. For earth friendly cleaning products, check out Seventh Generation and Sun & Earth.
For information on energy efficient appliances, check out theEnergy Star Program.
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