Brea Jones

In the Bay Area, many restaurants and grocery stores offer disposable goods made out of materials that will easily biodegrade. “Compostable in 60 days!” “Made from corn!”

When I first encountered these things several years ago, I was all about spud sporks. But I have since tried to reuse utensils rather than dispose of them … even in the compost. And lots of people who buy these compostable materials toss them right into the trash, so it’s really just a gimmick, right? I know we should all just reuse whenever possible, but when I threw a couple of parties in the past two weeks, I did it.

I purchased paper plates.

I don’t have a compost bin at home, but compost is picked up in the Green Bin with yard trimmings in Oakland. So all of our food scraps and paper plates from the party ended up composted. But this was still the inferior choice, right?

In an effort to quiet my guilt, I Googled to find out whether this is really worse than if we had used every plate in the house and washed them. What I found was other people asking the same questions, over, and over, and over.

My favorite was “Confessions of a Paper-Plate Addict,” posted on the New York Times website. She explains that while she began using paper because of a surgery that made dishwashing difficult, she soon got hooked.

I can guarantee I am not hooked on paper, but I still don’t know how bad of a decision my bad decision truly was. Searching for answers in a sea of guilty consciences is not easy.