Styrofoam Take-Out Containers

My mother-in-law was visiting us all last week, and we did a bit of traveling and dining out. Which always leads to bringing home leftovers in the dreaded Styrofoam containers. I wish I could tell you how many said containers ended up in our trash last week, but surfice it to say that 5 people x 2 meals eaten out a day x 5 days is a lot of containers. I try to double or triple up, but still, it is a lot of Styrofoam! (Which we cannot recycle in our local curbside recycling service. I have to look into other options.)

I mentioned something about needing to bring our own take-out containers to restaurants, and was met with a very strange look from my table mates. I had to remember that balance thingy I am trying to achieve here ... balancing my green goals with the traditional status-quo of my society .... and thought, "hey, why not just leave the food at the restaurant." FM is too frugal for that thought! We were leaving behind a whole meal!

So, then I argue about the wastefulness (and waist-fulness) of the quantity of food served. Lets try meal sharing, I argue. FM eats too much, there would be very little left for me to eat! And the kids long ago decided that they wanted their own meals at restaurants. It was, after all, getting hard to pick a meal that sounded good to me and to one of my kids.

So here I am again, trying to decide what I need to do with restaurant left-overs. The easiest solution is not to eat out. But when traveling, it is rather difficult. So I sit here and continue to ponder.

I guess I need to look at my county-wide, independent recycling station.