plastic utensils

Why carrying your own fork and spoon helps solve the plastic crisis

We throw away billions of utensils every year, and many of them end up in the environment. The BYO cutlery movement could make a dent.

Like many plastic items, cutlery often finds its way into the environment, where it poses dangers for animals and can take hundreds of years to break down.

Photograph by Hannah Whitaker, National Geographic
This article was created in partnership with the National Geographic Society.

Plastic cutlery is everywhere, and most of it can be used only once. Billions of forks, knives, and spoons are thrown away each year. But like other plastic items—such as bags and bottles—cutlery can take centuries to break down naturally, giving the plastic waste ample time to work its way into the environment.

A logical solution is to carry your own, but you’ll likely draw a few stares. For centuries, though, it would have been a faux pas to not travel with a set.

“You would come with a little carry case, and it would be your own personal knife and spoon,” says Sarah Coffin, who curated the 2006 exhibit Feeding Desire: Design and the Tools of the Table, 1500-2005 at

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