Biodegradable Cutlery and Plates

I'm getting married in a few months and am attempting to cut costs whenever a reasonable opportunity arises. One easy chance to do so involves plates and cutlery. Rather than rent real silver and plates from the caterer (Fox & Obel), we're going to use disposable stuff, with the exception of wine glasses.

As someone who hates the waste involved with plastic, however, I am hoping to find some sort of biodegradable option for all plates and cutlery. I have seen cutlery made of corn-based byproducts before, and came across wheat-based stuff on the web. Does anybody know of any Chicagoland stores that sell these types of products?

I don't but as an aside, Telluride Bluegrass Festival uses these items exclusively along with BIOTA water. I'm still looking for somewhere in Chicago that sells BIOTA water.

Bamboo plates and cutlery are biodegradable (fully biodegradable in 4-6 months, I think). I've seen the Bambu brand at at least Fox and Obel and the Museum of Contemporary Art gift shop. I'm sure I've seen their products elsewhere, too. I think I checked prices once. It seemed expensive compared to standard paper plates and plastic cutlery, but it looks well designed (i.e. aesthetically), and it is biodegradable. I think I actually saw some Bambu products go on sale at the MCA store at significant discount, but I may be confusing those plates and cutlery with some other funky disposable dishware, some plastic stuff maybe designed by Michael Graves (?).

Fox and Obel
401 E Illinois
Chicago IL 60611
312-410-7301

Museum of Contemporary Art Store
220 E Chicago Ave
Chicago IL 60611
312-280-2660

We used the Bambu veneer ware for the Thanksgiving we hosted for family last year. I was resistant to begin with and the expense and what I at first took for shoddy manufacturing didn't help matters...but...

...once we had the product out of the packaging and on the tables I changed my tune. It's an attractive design and not nearly as flimsy as it appears upon first glance. And...whoopee...it's biodegradable...





oh...we did use our own tableware(curiously enough, it's a bamboo design)...the Bambu cutlery just looks awkward...

Don't forget that nothing (OK, almost nothing) biodegrades in most modern municipal landfills, which are designed and maintained specifically to be as dry as an Egyptian tomb. That fork will be there for about 100 years before it finally breaks down.* So, throw those used biodegradable utensils in the compost pile, not the regular trash (or include with lawn waste, if your community separates that out for community composting).


* Exception made for bioreactor landfills, which are designed to keep the trash wet, in a controlled fashion, and are claimed to biodegrade materials in about 10 years. I don't know whether any landfills in the Chicago area are bioreactors, and offer an LTH Research Challenge to any who will take it on.

Ask and ye shall receive.

http://www.biodegradablestore.com/pp/co ... _S_GS.html

MAG wrote:Ask and ye shall receive.

http://www.biodegradablestore.com/pp/co ... _S_GS.html

As the ice melt whistles off the eaves then pitter-spatters outside the office window:

corn plastic is amazing

It's prevalent here in Indy. You can get orange juice in corn plastic liters. And, best of all...we have a passel of IMA coffee mugs all of this miraculous material. The only downside is that coffee stains them terribly, impregnates the matrix.

Thanks everybody. Your help is much appreciated.

I just discovered the biodegradable tableware made by the Japanese company Wasara--gorgeous, gorgeous stuff made from reed pulp and bagasse. I realize this is a few skips removed from the initial query... Wasara's products are probably expensive (too lazy to figure out the US$ conversion), and I think one may have to get them directly from Japan, so big carbon footprint there. Ah well...just in case someone is getting married in Japan and looking for disposable plates...