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Letter to the editor

Plan a green gala

Entertaining our friends doesn't require hurting our Earth, and caring for the environment isn't all work and no play.

By Judy Stark, Times Homes and Garden Editor
Published August 4, 2007

You've watched An Inconvenient Truth. You've listened to Gov. Charlie Crist and his new best friend, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, talking about hydrogen fuel cells, solar energy, eco-efficient building codes and nuclear power. You feel guilty when you carry your groceries home in a plastic bag.

Welcome to the New World Order in the land of the brave and the home of the green. Or would-be green. Or light green.

Dizzying, isn't it? Where do you start? What's an ordinary person to do?

Here's the challenge we posed: Let's entertain green. Let's give a party, set a table, decorate the place in a way that's sustainable, doable and attractive.

There are tradeoffs here, no question. Nothing's 100 percent clean and green. If you use cloth napkins, you have to wash them. Cost: energy! water! If you use recycled glass plates, you have to ask what kind of carbon footprint was created by the process of recycling. (Cost: fuel to haul used glass around, high-temperature kilns to melt it down and reprocess it, more fuel to ship the new dishes to retailers.) Organic/green/sustainable food and tableware may cost more, though prices likely will come down as demand and supply increase.

If it were simple and easy, we'd all be doing it already.

We can tell you what green entertaining isn't. In the words of Danny Seo, an environmental activist turned party planner, TV personality and author of Simply Green (Collins, $19.95), it's "not about running to the store and buying endless amounts of party decorations and knickknacks that just get thrown out when the evening is over."

Do what comes naturally

The biggest challenge is to set a table that lives up to the mantra of "reduce, reuse, recycle."

The easiest way to do that is to use what you use every day: your usual china and flatware. You're not buying anything new, you're not creating waste with plastic and paper.

"The least damaging is your everyday china," says Robyn Griggs Lawrence, editor of Natural Home magazine.

If you don't own enough dishes for a big party, rent them. Or borrow from friends. Or shop at a secondhand store for the plates and flatware you need. "They don't have to match, and they can break" and you won't be heartbroken, Lawrence said.

Another top choice for Lawrence is recycled glass plates. (Though, as noted above, there's an energy price to be paid there.)

Plastic may pass the test

If the party's outside and you're nervous about broken china, you have a couple of alternatives.

One - don't cringe, though Robyn Lawrence does - is plastic, such as melamine, the hard plastic dishware that has been in every store this summer. Yes, it's a petroleum product, but it can go in the dishwasher and be reused dozens of times, not just tossed in the trash.

Another form of plastic is the plates you find at the party store, clear or in colors. A pack of 20 dinner plates, 10 1/4 inches in diameter, costs about $10 and can be washed and dried by hand and reused.

Recycline's Preserve Plateware is made from plastic recycled from Stoneyfield Farm yogurt containers. These can go in the dishwasher or can be recycled in communities that accept #5 plastic. (Find these at Whole Foods markets (there's one in Sarasota), www.recycline.com, or www.greenfeet.com. A 10-pack of 10-inch plates is $7.50 at greenfeet.)

If you don't like the alternatives you can wash and reuse, you have options in the area of those intended for single use that you can dispose of responsibly.

Plates made from organically grown, highly sustainable bamboo will biodegrade in four to six months, the manufacturer says. An eight-pack of 11-inch dinner plates is $10.95. at www.greenfeet.com.

Some paper plates are compostable and biodegradable. Chinet, for example, makes some lines of plates from recycled materials, some of which are biodegradable in home composting systems. Read the label carefully at the grocery store.

At www.biodegradablestore.com you can buy tableware - plates, cups, utensils, more - made from corn polymer, potato starch or sugar cane.

Choosing your flatware

Over the next few weeks Diamond brand will introduce Renew dinnerware, flatware made from recycled plastic with cutout handles that uses 10 percent less plastic overall and can be cleaned in the dishwasher. It comes in a recycled paperboard box. A package of eight each of forks, knives and spoons is $1.59.

"It's targeted toward those who are environmentally conscious," said senior brand manager Amy Lemen. Most consumers already wash and reuse plastic flatware, she said.

A three-piece place setting of hand-washable bamboo flatware is $3.95 at Crate and Barrel (www.crateandbarrel.com), which also sells pressed-bamboo dinnerware that can be hand-washed and reused (prices start at $3.95).

At www.greenfeet.com, compostable bamboo sporks - spoon-fork combinations - are $9.50 for a bag of 24. They're intended for one-time use. They'll break down after a few months in the compost pile. (They're imported from China, so you may wince at the carbon footprint created by transporting them thousands of miles. On the other hand, that's where bamboo grows. The manufacturer, Bambu Boutique, says its Shanghai factories are audited for worker health, safety and environmental protection. The company says it financially supports environmental organizations and engages in fair labor practices.)

Recycled has its price

You can also find plates made of recycled materials, such as the Seventh Generation brand, made from 83 percent postconsumer materials (about $5 for a pack of 40). They may not also be biodegradable, but consumer demand helps create a market for recycled goods.

Even that has its pluses and minuses, Lawrence said. "You're saving something from going to the landfill, but what's the amount of energy you spend to transport and remanufacture something at the next stage? The jury's still out on whether that's definitely a better option. That's the nature of the industry at this point."

Once you've made a decision you and your conscience can live with about plates and cutlery, think about the rest of the table. A fabric tablecloth and napkins are at first glance a better choice than throwaway paper.

However, finding 100 percent cotton cloths and napkins isn't as easy as you may think. Many fabric napkins are a 50-50 cotton/poly blend or 100 percent polyester. And cotton comes at a price. Commercially grown, non-organic cotton is heavily dependent on pesticides and fertilizers. The World Wildlife Federation quotes estimates that say cotton is the largest user of water of all agricultural commodities.

If you want to go the paper route, you can use napkins made from recycled paper (many manufacturers sell these; read the label at the grocery store). A vinyl tablecloth that you wipe off and reuse, though made of plastic, is another choice.

Danny Seo, the green entertainer, likes to use inexpensive bandannas as napkins. (He buys his at the Army-Navy store.) When dinner's over, he uses them to tie up flatware and plates for transport home to be washed.

What to drink from? Essentially the same choices: glassware, recycled glassware, reusable plastic. Recycline makes reusable, recycled, recyclable tumblers.

Lighting outdoors? Use solar lanterns and in-ground lights. Candles? Skip those made of paraffin, a petroleum residue that produces soot and pollutants. Instead, light soy or beeswax candles, which burn clean.

Do the ultimate environmental thing: Turn off the electric lights and dine by candlelight: What's more eco-friendly than that?

Judy Stark can be reached at (727) 893-8446 or stark@sptimes.com.

We asked some of the participants in this story to tell us how they'd entertain Al Gore, whose film An Inconvenient Truth has galvanized public opinion about climate change.

"I'd probably do a small dinner and use local produce. I'm a big believer in eating organically, but if the food is from Chile as opposed to 20 miles away, I'd go with locally grown. I've also discovered there's now a good selection of organic wines and beers. We'd be relaxing and looking at what our carbon footprint was when we were done, and be able to talk about that."

Susan Angel, wedding and party planner, Boise, Idaho

 "I'd have him come on a Saturday or a Wednesday. Those are the days we have the farmers market out here in Boulder, Colo. I'd make whatever was available from the farmer's market. I have a big old antique Eastern Indian table that I set pretty casually. I'd make him lots and lots of food."

Robyn Griggs Lawrence, editor, Natural Home magazine

"I worked on the Clinton/Gore campaign and met Al a few times. I'd serve whatever was in season and the freshest there is. You can never go wrong with grilled fruit with a big scoop of the best vanilla ice cream. Who wouldn't love that? And exquisite wines are always an A+."

Danny Seo, TV personality and author who specializes in green entertaining, by e-mail

Chris Ponte, chef, Cafe Ponte, Largo

FAST FACTS

On the tabletop

Here are more suggestions for entertaining green, from Susan Angel, a wedding and party planner in Boise, Idaho, and others:

- Think of new uses for common things. For a charity event for Ballet Idaho, Angel bought used 12- by 12-inch ceramic floor tiles from a building salvage center ($1 each) and used them as chargers under her dinner plates. She made placecards out of handmade paper impregnated with flower seeds that guests could take home and plant.

- With a bottle cutter, make glass votives out of empty wine bottles.

- Reuse what you have: Paint or decorate terra-cotta pots and plant succulents. Use fabric you already have for table runners.

- If you have to buy, shop at secondhand and thrift shops for flower containers, dishes, flatware, decorative items.

- Choose local flowers. Seventy-seven percent of the cut-flower market in the United States comes from Colombia. Flying those flowers in thousands of miles has a big fuel cost. (The other side: 65 percent of the Colombian flower work force is women, who may be the economic mainstays of their families.)

[Last modified August 2, 2007, 15:26:16]