As I was filling the tray with freshly washed thrift store forks once:
CW: "Ewww, gross. Those are used? I’ll stick to the disposables. I’m a germaphobe."
Me: “So you never eat at restaurants that use real silverware?”
CW: Startled stare.
Yeah, 'cos plastic forks made in a non-sterile factory in China and moved half way around the world in a shipping container are way cleaner than this one I just washed right in front of your face...
I was in the States recently and couldn't believe the amount of disposable stuff used everywhere. Every hotel that had a free continental breakfast used styrofoam cereal bowls! Ugh. Aside from the hideous hideous waste, it's just such a poor dining experience. The bendy spoon scraping along the bottom of the bowl. Buttering a muffin with a flexible knife, ah, it made me ragey!
And restaurants were just as bad. Ordered a coffee and bagel with cream cheese to go, from an independent hipster looking place. The coffee came in an 'Eco-cup!" proudly proclaiming how recycled it was. The bagel was placed in a huge clear plastic box (never even seen one of these in the UK, let alone been given one with something as cheap as a bagel, I'd best describe it as a display box), then in a huge paper bag. About 30 napkins were stuffed in, 3 FULL SETS of cutlery, and then, when I took it out to eat it (what a frigging palaver, trying to balance all that), I discovered my cream cheese was in a separate solo cup and I had to do it myself! Bendy knife, balancing a pound of disposable packaging, but oh great, the coffee cup was recycled. REDUCE, reuse, recycle.
Interestingly, the only place that did what I would consider the SENSIBLE thing of putting the cream cheese ON my bagel and handing it to me in a thin 6" square paper bag was... Starbucks. If some people don't want their cream cheese on immediately, just say, 'On the side?' like with salad dressing. /rant