Ohio Jones was talking about a school district where they would presumably need to use commercial dishwashers.Josh wrote: ↑Wed Nov 29, 2023 11:21 pmWhilst paper easily composts (although wax coatings are a problem), the “compostable” plastic-ish utensils and cups actually can’t be composted except in special facilities… which barely exist. And require special pickups. Is it really a good idea to have a truck making a special route for that?
Washing dishes is pretty energy efficient. I mean, we do it in my house every day, plus at the office every day (or at least… I wish we did). It’s not like it’s using a bunch of energy.You have to do a complete energy audit from top to bottom to determine which is more efficient. Because washing metal silverware requires water, energy to heat the water, detergent, etc. And forks and plates made from compostable plant resin require energy to manufacture and ship.
There is also this invention called “dishwashers”.
In any event, I expect there are other issues. At the school where I teach the cafeteria is over-capacity and they'd have to implement a 3-lunch rotation schedule if they were going to require all students to sit at lunch tables during lunch. It was built as a 3-year HS in 1999 with about 1400 students. It has expanded to a 4-year HS with about 2200 students by building an additional academic wing but the cafeteria is still the same as before.
So they let kids bring lunches to various lounges and places around school to eat. That means they basically have to provide food in cardboard to go boxes with compostable silverware. If they served food on plastic lunch trays with stainless silverware like in the 1970s half of it would never make it back to the cafeteria. It is the same reason you don't get china plates and silverware at McDonalds or other fast food restaurants.