Are Disposables Good for the Jews?
Disposables, the cheap backbone of organized Jewish life, are so much a part of our experience that we don't even notice them. Every meeting, every kiddush, every Hebrew school snack, at simchahs, shivas, namings, you name it - "paper goods" are at the ready. The decision for most groups hasn't been whether to use disposables, but what "quality" to use. Some high-end disposables are really perfectly reusable based on their weight; the reason we trash them is that they're cheap, since their environmental impacts and costs are not factored into their price.About ten years ago when we had a large shabbat dinner preceding our son's bar mitzvah, I was determined to use real dishes. They're much more aesthetically pleasing and so much less wasteful. Since our synagogue didn't have any, I looked into renting them and discovered that while they were more costly than disposables (especially since it requires dish washing), purchasing them wasn't that much more than renting. I located some at deep discount from an outlet, service for 60 for about $200. We then contributed them to our synagogue as a gift, and they have been used over and over again for all kinds of occasions. Given the cost of a simchah, $200 is a trivial amount, really, even if you add a budget item for the dishwasher.
Our minyan, Dorshei Derekh here in Philadelphia, ends Shabbat morning with a kiddush. Like most every minyan in the world, we used little plastic or paper cups. (Except when we ran out and substituted BIG plastic/paper cups!) At a minyan meeting long ago, one eco-conscious member said this really bothered him and proposed we put our heads together to be more sustainable. The very low tech system we arrived it has worked for more than years we can definitively count, at least 5 or 6. We bought Ikea tea light holders, pictured above, four for $1.50. We also bought heavy plastic cups and glasses. (The plastic plates and glasses are primary colors and not too gorgeous; I don't think anyone envisioned using them for this many years.) We place a heavy plastic receptacle in the corner and everyone busses their cups and plates into it. One volunteer a week takes charge of washing them either on site (one week's worth fills a dishwasher) or at home, returning them before the next week. Once or twice a year the volunteer forgets and we use disposables as a fall back, but it's pretty astonishing to contemplate how much waste we have diverted and how effective this utterly simple system is. We have a Sustainability Coordinator and about 6-8 volunteers, so each volunteer's job turn every other month or so.
washing the community dishes cultivates humility, not a bad thing either.
It would be great to share other communities' strategies for waste reduction here at the COEJL site. Please report on your community efforts and success in this area; I'm sure many of the approaches are replicable.
