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From the Editors, April 2010
Letter from Wilmington
Welcome to our Earth Day 2010 edition! Our features on “citizen science” research and reduction strategies can help you celebrate the Earth all year round. Find our complete directory of local resources — always available online.
Mary Robertson, our Eugene editor, played an invaluable role in researching and writing this issue. And, I confess—I was the one who bought the meltable soup bowls for the family reunion!
—Valerie L. Robertson
Editor-in-Chief
Letter from Eugene
My “aha” moment came at the hospital. In the third floor surgery waiting room, to be exact. I had brought up rice bowls from the café downstairs while a friend and I waited anxiously for the surgeon to reappear.
I looked in the bag and sighed…napkins, a plastic fork, salt packets, even though I had requested none of these and had grabbed a couple of stainless spoons and a china plate before they could protest. “I promise I’ll bring them back,” I said, bolting out the door.
But the fork looked—promising. Not your typical flimsy plastic affair, to break at the first stab into even the soggiest rice bowl. But a substantial, hefty, satin-finished thing of beauty. I turned it over to check for logos or the telltale dot left from the plastic manufacturing process. Nothing. Hm. Putting it to the true test, I nibbled hesitantly at the handle to see what it was made of. I looked up to see my friend staring at me. We both burst out laughing at the oddity of my gnawing at the fork, a welcome break from the stress of waiting for the surgeon’s report.
Finding the compostable fork in the carryout bag buoyed my spirits. I’ve had many disappointing plant-based polymer experiences, from leaking deli containers to the melting soup bowls at the family reunion. I’m always on the lookout for a better product.
So I ran back downstairs to ask the café employees where the flatware came from. They obligingly pulled out bags full of forks and spoons, noting with pride that the manufacturer had recently replaced even the plastic packaging itself with compostable bags. They said they had none of the usual problems with melting that can plague plant-based flatware. Back in the waiting room I plugged in my laptop and looked up the manufacturer—a
mere hundred miles away!—and discovered the corn-based forks have a melting point of 185 degrees—not boiling, certainly, but pretty good. I’d rather not eat anything hotter than that, anyway.
Flushed with pride at my discovery, I savored the rest of my rice bowl. But what to do with my now slightly mangled fork? The café couldn’t take it back. I slipped it into my briefcase, knowing chances were slim I’d ever use it again; it would probably end up getting tossed into the city composting bin after riding around with me a few weeks.
I thought about the corn that someone grew, watered and fertilized, and harvested. The energy spent in designing and manufacturing the fork, packing it up and sending it, probably via diesel-fueled truck from Portland. Although I’d sure rather have bits of corn in my compost than a plastic fork wending its way down the creek into the ocean, I’m not sure that single-use fork is the best answer for the environment.
Unlike my stainless spoon. On the way out of the hospital that night, I slipped it into the bussing tray at the café to rejoin its mates with a satisfying clank. It’ll enjoy many reuses, have a story or two to tell, and probably outlast me in the process.
—Mary Robertson
Eugene Contributing Editor
Mary Robertson serves as contributing editor to Cape Fear’s Going Green. She lives in Eugene, Oregon, where she enjoys singing, organic gardening, and nibbling on the occasional fork.
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