[petschge]

The other thing that is very obvious as an European currently living in the US is the insane amount of plastic associated with food. Hotel breakfast will be (even in relatively upscale hotels) on single-use styrofoam plates, with single-use plastic cutlery, plastic lined single-use "paper" cups and composed of tons of individually plastic packed items.

Food in the cafeteria (I have seen the well hated name Aramak in a few places there) is served in single-use take-out containers, even if you explicitly tell them it is "for here" not "to go", because the cafeteria works have no (clean) plates at their stations. Cutlery is also plastic, since they removed the silverware a few weeks ago after too many complaints that it had been poorly cleaned. The disk washers are now busy taking out mountains of trash, instead of cleaning reusable items.

Once dinner time comes around most of my colleagues eat take out, that is put in plastic lined paper in the best case and styrofoam in the typical case. And even if it is a single item, it will be in a plastic bag or two, along with a large handful of napkins, ten tiny sachets of bbq and hot sauce and three straws, even if no single drink is included.

[ip26]

This is America, where adding plastic always makes it better, and making it disposable is progress.

Today I looked in the fridge at work and saw precooked hardboiled eggs in a plastic bag.

- Sad American