Shrink Wrapped Dinner Set

Shrink wrapped dinner set observed in a lamb hotpot restaurant in Foshan, China. The package contains a tea cup, water glass, bowl, spoon and plate. The name of sanitizing company and process date are printed on the wrap.

Pros:

• Convenient – staff can distribute a complete dinner set very quickly and hassle free. It can save the valuable few seconds from gathering dinner set and put that into better service time.
• Sanitize – it’s more sanitized to store the dinnerware with individual package then just stacking them, some times while still wet, in open air. Also prevent easy contamination by spills, insects, animals…etc.
• Safety – it seems to be safer to handle a tightly wrapped package then loose dinnerware, especially in a high traffic restaurant setting.
• Effective processing – with centralized processing facility, the soiled dinnerware can be cleaned and sanitized in high cost-performance ratio: with high volume, less labour, less resources like water and detergent.
• Human and machinery resources – it is cheaper to hire and train a dinnerware washing specialist than getting someone with well-rounded ability. Also, the company can invest in specialized cleaning machinery that is not otherwise affordable to individual restaurants.

Cons:

• Sustainability (plastic waste) – this package creates lots of non-reusable, hard to recycle plastic waste. In the case of China, it’s simply cheaper to trash the plastic than recycling them, and most people wouldn’t care so much about eco-friendliness.
• False sense of security / legitimacy - can anyone guarantee that the dinner set is absolutely cleaned and sanitized? Guarantee that it’s from a certified sanitizer company? The process date and company name is accurate? Possibility for fraudulence and fake package? In China, it would be naive not to question the legitimacy of everything.

Further thoughts on disposable culture in China:

• disposable table liner
• disposable chopsticks
• foot bath liners
• disposable toilet seat cover (example company: http://www.cleansis.com/about.html)

What’s your thought? Will talk more about some of these items in future posts.