As soon as the waitress (or owner?) placed the dish in front of me, I was fairly certain that I would be taking some food home with me. And I thought, “Well, it’s a Chinese restaurant, so they’ll have those nice little cardboard boxes. Still disposable, so not as good as, say, bringing my own reusable container, but a lot better than styrofoam.”
Fast forward to the end of the meal. It’s a small restaurant and we’re standing at the counter to pay. I ask for a box and then see the huge pile of styrofoam, and the woman reaches for one. I start to panic. What to do? Do I take the styrofoam or do I say no thanks and waste the food? I really want to take the food home with me — it was good and I hate wasting food — but I also hate styrofoam. Dilemma. Which is the lesser of two evils?
At which point my non-panicking companion says, “Could we please have one of the little cardboard boxes?”
Maybe if I had taken a deep breath, I would have seen the cardboard boxes, too. Crisis averted.
Her Green Life 