[plughs]

> The cost of just washing something can be relatively and unreasonably high, environmentally speaking.

We have a break room with a sink, reusable dinnerware, and disposable dinnerware. I cringed when I saw people washing a reusable plate in the sink. We're in Southern California. There's no way in which it is better for the environment to use gallons of water in order to keep a paper plate and a plastic fork out of the landfill.

Too often people take Reduce/Reuse/Recycle to heart without taking a broader view of all the resources that they are consuming.