Photo Credit: Marshall Astor - Food Pornographer

Take out meals are usually served with a side order of plastic cutlery and various condiments in plastic packets. Around 39 billion pieces of disposable cutlery end up in American landfills every year. Restaurant reviewers rarely waste any of their precious time talking about the environmental impact of the meal.

My time is less precious, so I am writing this post this morning and adding a couple of links that will help people cut down on the amount of plastic that they waste when ordering late night takeout.

Tell your favorite restaurateur about Vegware™ biodegradable and compostable cutlery. I haven’t had much luck finding any restaurant sites that mention this product.

New Yorkers eat a lot of takeout and they have so many choices. Here is a list of over 3,000 New York restaurants and that is just the tip of the iceberg. New Yorkers don’t have to do their own search for the most environmentally responsible take out options because EcoAgents has a campaign to bring restaurants on board what has been dubbed Eco To Go. Here is a list of participating restaurants.

If you are the type of person who orders from the same place week after week, consider taking the time to ask the staff to leave the plastic out of your order.

My most frequent takeout item is a chawarma sandwich. They put the fries right in the sandwich and it comes wrapped in a piece of butcher paper.