Compostable Bowls
Modern life is filled with modern conveniences. Unfortunately, many of those conveniences come with a price we would rather not pay. They can provide a low quality experience when you use them and, very often, you also get to feel guilty about the environment afterwards.
Let’s say your boss has tasked you with throwing a soup party at the office, There is no means to wash a bunch of dishes afterwards. Besides, these are your co-workers, not your children. Cleaning up after them is not really part of your job duties, even if when you are asked to organize an event. There is a modern convenience to solve this problem: Disposable bowls.
The problem is that if you get Styrofoam bowls and put hot soup in them, you can actually see how the Styrofoam melts from the heat and you can taste how it has contaminated the food. Even if you do not believe that has negative health consequences, who on earth actually likes the taste of Styrofoam? It makes for a lousy dining experience to have your soup with a little bit of Styrofoam flavoring. Afterwards, you get to feel guilty about what you are doing to the environment.
Alternately, you could get plastic bowls. They are more heat tolerant in that they are less likely to melt or off-gas. They also have no insulation, so holding a disposable plastic bowl full of hot soup is a good way to get burned. They also do not solve the issue of guilt. Plastic is also something that will do bad things to the environment after it arrives at a landfill.
Another alternative is paper bowls. They are better insulated than plastic, will not leave behind a chemical taste, and there is some hope they will properly biodegrade when they go to the landfill. This sounds like a winner, until you actually throw your party and discover that paper has a bad habit of not holding up well when wet. This is a potential disaster of a party.
The superior answer here is compostable bowls made from sustainable materials like bamboo. They will hold up well when filled with hot soup. Like paper bowls, they have natural insulation to protect your fingers from the heat, and there will be no chemical taste added to your food. Furthermore, when they get to the landfill, they will properly and fully biodegrade. Problem solved.