Paper or Ceramic?

[hillbillyken]

As many of you know I am now a self proclaimed Water Cop in my house hold and as Water Cop it is my sworn duty to find means and ways of conserving water.

I have really been milling around in my head whether to use paper plate instead of ceramic ones. I have a family of six and I must say they go through the dishes. It seem that our dish washer goes at least once a day and that my friend is just way to much. I think it should go only twice a week. So in order to fix the waste, I am thinking of implementing a new law and that is, eating off of paper plate and plastic wear. I know that I can buy paper plate at a very reasonable price at the Dollar Store and it would cost merely pennies on the dollar for six people to eat.

I guess what I am trying to say is, do you eat off of paper or ceramic and would it be more cost effective to go to paper?...Thanx HB Ken

[Nutso]

I have to say that I hate paper plates so I use glass plates. When I do use paper plates, I have to get the decent quality ones...with the super cheap ones, your food ends up on the floor...and don't even get me started with trying to eat steak on a paper plate..... ...in the end, you have a lot more waste....so I think it is cheaper in the long run to just use regular plates and flatware.

So my suggestion would be.....roll up your sleeves and wash by hand.

[patricimo54]

We use both, mostly paper from W/M. We use enough ceramic ones so that we can run our new energy efficient dish washer about twice a week., but it is just me and my Beautiful Bride.

[Admin]

I would think that it would cost more money in the long run to continually eat off paper plates and disposable silverware.

The method that people use in washing dishes can make all the difference in the world. Like why do people feel they need to have the faucet running full blast while they're brushing their teeth?

At our deer camp we have no running water so we fill 2 basins with water, one for wash - one for rinse and as long as we wash our greasy dishes last it works fine and there's no need to continually have the faucet running. If people wipe off their silverware and plates with their napkin before placing it in the sink it takes a lot less water to clean them. The best thing to do is just have the dog lick them clean and be done with it It saves on water and dog food

[hillbillyken]

Downhome

Could you share some of your one pot recipes. I have recently took over cooking duties, so any suggestions in the means of making less of a mess would be very helpful ;D....Thanx HB Ken

[chevy]

I'm not sure about using paper plates and plastic utensils. I realize water consumption is important but so is filling our landfills with more waste. I would stick to ceramic myself.

Cheers, Chevy

[badger]

This depends on what we are eating. In the morning I don't want my runny egg yokes bleeding through a paper plate, same goes for any other meals that have gravy, juice, or broth.

But I eat alot of grilled cheese snadwiches, and pizza, tacoes, etc that are fine on paper.

When I gought my house, it had a dish washer, that was the first thing to go besides the willow tree above the garage.

I do most of the dishwashing here, and I can do it without using too much water.

My problem is how much beer it takes to cook, eat, and then do the dishes!

[mike692]

I read somewhere that the way most people wash dishes, a dishwasher actually conserves water.

If you decide to go the paper plate route, you could always feed them to composting worms when you're done with them. ;D

[patricimo54]

I think our new dishwasher does a load with 3.5 gallons.

[hillbillyken]

after reading pat's post it got me to think, how much water does my dish washer use? I did a little search on the web and came up with this answer from the Energy Star web site " ENERGY STAR qualified dishwashers typically use one-third less water than non-qualified models. The average ENERGY STAR qualified dishwasher uses 4 gallons per cycle while the average non-qualified dishwasher uses 6 gallons a cycle."

Now my dish washer is energy star certified. Lets do the math, keep in mind we were using our dish washer EVERY day, so here goes.

8 gal a day, wash & rinse, X 7 days in the week X 4 weeks in the month= 224 total gallons, a month X 12 months, in a year = 2,688 gallons a year, for dishes alone.

doesn't that seem a little much to you all...I have started hand washing the cooking dishes and silverware, so that has cut down on the dish washing and we are now using paper plates and everyone has there own plastic cup that is rinsed after use and re-used. I think that I will be able to cut water usage to half of what we were using which would be 114 gallons or less, a month for dishes. That seems very reasonable. .....what do you say?

And as far as land fill is concerned we are allowed to burn trash in the country but we recycle cans and plastic...HB Ken


Information source: energystar.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/energystar.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=2539

[mike692]

That's a lot of water Ken. Not a concern for me, a single guy living alone, but for you a definate concern.

I burn my garbage too and I used to burn all my paper. Since getting a paper shredder and worms, they get it all now. And I run paper plates through my shredder as well. Between that, and recycling everything that can be recycled, I have very little garbage to burn. Just plastic wrapping, and 'shiney' paper.