Monday, September 24, 2007

Overrated

Anthony Bourdain has an overrated menu up on Radar Magazine, which includes ...
Pea soup topped with truffle oil: Truffle oil is the lazy chef's way to add value, by which I mean charge more.

Chocolate martini: Both chocolate and liquor are good in bars, but ordering them together announces that you don't like or appreciate either. Anyone who requests this drink should also get a T-shirt that says "I am an asshole, please take my money."
To make this menu even more overrated, may I suggest biodegradable plastic products? I know it's all the rage among the environmentally-inclined to use biodegradable plastic spoons and forks and such as the green alternative. The corn-based, or whatever, products will allow us to consume one-use items with a clear conscience, or so the hype goes.

Well, I have included two biodegradable plastic items in my compost pile in the past two years, and today, that plastic water bottle (that I carried all the way from Colorado, I might add) and that flimsy plastic bag still look as pristine and as structurally intact as the day they were made. They have not degraded one bit. Not even a little hole anywhere to indicate some kind of plastic collapse. And that's deep in my hot, damp, worm-ridden compost pile, which can make pizza boxes disappear in a matter of weeks. What would happen to them in the dry, cold landfill? They'd sit there, for years, that's what would happen to them.

And so, I'm officially taking the position that biodegradable plastic is overrated. It irritated Foodgoat to see the couple on TV smugly proclaiming their wedding "green" because of their use of biodegradable spoons and forks - sure, it soothes the guilty consumerist soul, but we're pretty sure that in reality, all they really do is create more landfill trash.

6 comments:

  1. Leave it to him to be trendy. His whole book talked about the importance of creating a niche and doing it will in the industry and not trying to expand to unfamiliar territory. Sounds like he didn't take his own advice.

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  2. Biodegradable plastic typically needs lots of sunlight to degrade to the point where it can be broken down by organisms. Keeping it buried in the compost pile isn't what they had planned (though it should be.)

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  3. There is no way biodegradable plastic items will see the sunlight for long. It will just end up in the middle of some giant garbage dump.

    Don't waste your money and you're not saving the world.

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  4. I recently heard that the corn based cups etc need to be taken to a special facility of which there are only about 10 in the country in order to be broken back down...

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  5. Can't people wash plates and utensils anymore?

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  6. Anonymous9:58 PM

    How tacky to have disposable cutlery at a wedding at all! I hate to sound like a snob but when you get hitched, go all out and use real cutlery. It sets a nice tone. After all, who wants to be thinking about the joys of recycling when you are making 'til death do us part' promises.

    I have some of the potato starch cutlery and soy based take out containers that a manufactuere sent to me for use on TV. I think I'll bury some in my composter and see how long they take to break down....running off to experiment.

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