A plastic plate or a ceramic plate: which is better for the environment? What about a plastic fork vs. a metal one? You have to use water and energy to wash dishes — isn’t that just as bad as waste?
These are variations on a question I often hear from event professionals: are china and glassware really more sustainable than disposables?
To be able to better answer that question, I’ve been digging into some research. There aren’t a ton of scientific studies comparing the environmental impact of real dishes vs. disposable ones, but there are some. I particularly liked this literature review that summarizes multiple studies.
These are the main takeaways I gathered from my research:
1) There are tons of factors that go into the “life cycle assessment” of a product, which is the study of the product’s overall impact on the environment from its production, use, and disposal. Factors include where the item was made, what energy was used to power the production process, how it is transported, how many times it is used, and how it is disposed of, among many others.
2) The “break-even point” is the number of uses required for a reusable item to be better for the environment than the disposable option. If you use each item only once, the product that’s designed to be disposable will typically have less of an environmental impact. Reusable products are only beneficial when they are actually reused. (Imagine that!) That may sound like a no-brainer, but it’s important to understand that durable products are not inherently more beneficial without the correct accompanying behavior of reuse.
The break-even point can vary greatly based on different life cycle assessment factors, as well as which two products you’re comparing. For example, the break-even point between a ceramic plate and a paper plate vs. the break-even point between a ceramic plate and a plastic plate will be different. Different studies also came up with different break-even points even when comparing the same two materials.
3) In general, to maximize the environmental benefit from reusable products, it’s important to use them as many times as possible and clean them as efficiently as possible. These behaviors help you reach the break-even point in fewer uses.
That last takeaway prompted some questions in my mind about the event rentals industry. Are event rentals used often enough and washed efficiently enough to truly be better for the environment?
To learn the answers, I talked to Chung Chow, brand manager for Indianapolis-based A Classic Party Rental.
“Our most popular china is rented about 40 times per year,” Chung says. “In 30 years, we have not retired any of our china! We replace equipment as needed when it’s damaged, lost, or broken.”
By choosing timeless styles that have lasted for 30 years, a plate from A Classic potentially could have been used 1,200 times! This is significantly higher than the break-even points I found in studies about reusable vs. disposable plates (though I admit these studies are few and far between).
As for cleaning efficiency? “We follow the American Rental Association guidelines for washing dishes and linen efficiently,” Chung says, “in addition to all recommended processes from our chemical representative and machine technicians.”
Having recently moved into a new facility, Chung shared that A Classic has worked hard and consulted with engineers to avoid wasting water or chemicals in their new setup.
“From a sustainability standpoint, we are using the least amount of chemicals and water possible to ensure our linen and dishware is washed in accordance with the board of health and our high-quality standards.”
So is a rental always better for the environment than a disposable product? If you only use it twice and wash it with 10 gallons of water each time, no. But if we move past items “technically” being reusable to actually reusing them many times, and washing them efficiently when we do, reusable products like event rentals are a valuable tool for planning an event with less waste and a lower environmental impact.
My research into event rentals yielded way more info that I could fit into one article. Stay tuned for future articles about handling waste from rentals (yes, there is some) and how using rentals can be easier than you think!
Thank you for explaining that you can maximize a reusable item’s environmental benefit by cleaning them as efficiently as possible and using them again and again after that. If you hired an event that used their own utensils then I also feel like the overall price would go down. They wouldn’t need to buy new stuff each time and could save you money from having to do it too.