I’m disgusted by it.

But I’ve also reached the point where I’ve accepted that humanity will absolutely destroy this planet and there’s not much that we can do about it.

I still try to minimize my waste, but I do so simply to make myself feel better in the short term, not because I think it’s actually going to make a difference in the end.

I personally avoid going to places that require tips or if they use anything disposables for dine in. Or if they scan ID. Fuck them.

For carry out, if disposable better be paper and foil. Yeah it limits my choices but this is a direct action I can do all day every day. Food out iz a luxury anyway. I can literally go without while saving money.

So is breathing wasteful since you’re turning o2 into co2 exacerbating the green house issue?

Without reading anything but the title - yes. I actively avoid going to restaurants that use single use plates and the like. I also take containers with me and encourage others to do so rather than using single use takeout containers for leftovers. I also am not keen on doing takeout.

deleted by creator

But that also wastes a lot of freshwater from dish washing

I’m going to pick on this one point. A high end dishwasher appliance only use 2.4 gallons (9L) of fresh water, while even average dishwashers use about 5 to 6 gallons. To put that in perspective an 8 minute shower likely uses 17 gallons.

So dishwashing is a tiny tiny waste, if you can even call it a waste.

I came to say actually its a bit more efficient but it sounds like you mean fast food. I mean when I hear out to eat I think waitress, silver and dinnerware type thing. I mean even casual dining like tgif or such and heck steak and shake you can sit down and get that. Also if you have ever seen technology connections, dishwashers are insanely efficient water wise reusing it over and over till it gets dirty.

Freshwater is not wasted. Hot water is wasted unless your water heating comes from renewable energy (rare), so wash as cold as possible, but freshwater is not wasted. It is trivial (though it does cost money!) to treat waste water from your cleaning (including your toilets) and turn it back into drinkable fresh water. I know cities generally dump their treated sewage back into the river, but it is drinkable water and the next city downstream will take it in.

Yep, I hate it too. At least the places I eat at (by myself, not with my wife) barely give you a napkin, you just get the meal and accompanying grease, but still.

kind of disgusted at the waste created by going out to eat?

I’m kinda annoyed they want me to segregate it into three different trashcans

The amount of packaging we use once and then just throw away is hideous.

In Germany they put a bounty on glass bottles to encourage people to collect and return for reusing and I wish we would standardize more/all packaging like this and reuse everything over and over.

no

If you think what you have to throw out as the consumer is wasteful, take a look in the kitchens of these places and tell me that it’s any better. Most foods that have to be prepped in advance must be separated by single-use parchment/wax paper, then wrapped in plastic. When ready to use, use a glove for a few uses to take the prepped food out of the wrap, remove the paper separating it all, and chuck it out. It could have been prepped a week ago, or only two hours ago for fresh use, you still throw out all this paper and plastic wrapping. And then the cleaning, there is an inexcusable amount of paper towel used for various purposes, from drying your hands to wiping a counter/table, etc. And it’s all thrown out. Some restaurants will use towels and kitchen rags, but then you have so many to wash and clean, it’s usually done by a third-party service that has to drive to pick it all up, drive to a central laundry stop, do the laundry, and then drive it all back to get done again. And if you are in a place that has a washing machine in-house, it’s a drop in the bucket in solving real waste issues.

I’ve at least been never using cup lids or straws and never taking drink carriers when [they’re] offered (what a massive waste of cardboard!).

1. lids and straws are absolutely insignificant against the whole.
2. cardboard drink carriers use a rougher kind of cardboard without dyes or wax or plastic, and it’s on the end of the spectrum with the least impact to the environment.

…the bag and wrapper.

You may have picked a class of restaurant that produces the most hard-to-biodegrade waste, and I’m not sure it’s proper to paint an entire industry based on its worst members. It’s like the sub-prime mortgage crisis but for restaurant and waste.

“cook at home!”

I’m not sure you’re comparing two values with the same magnitude.

I wonder if this is just something you notice as you get older.

Your writing suggests a member of a cohort that isn’t even close to getting ‘older’. As an American Millennial, in a country with a rapidly-declining life expectancy, growing old may not be a valid concern.

peiple

A hat on a hat.

It’s unfortunately a cost thing.

If you want to avoid the single use waste, you have to patronise more expensive restaurants

In my experience it’s fast food or fast food adjacent places that are the worst for disposable items. The more expensive the meal, the only things going in the bin are any leftovers.

It really shouldn’t be that way, but it is.