What's better for the environment (in California), regular plates or paper plates?

These Biodegradable Compostable Plates might be a good alternative.

It takes a lot of water to produce a single paper plate. Around half a gallon per plate.

Well, there ya go. Can you elaborate on that?

I think that anything that can be reused is better for any environment than anything that gets thrown away after one, maybe two uses.

@simone54 Here’s a general idea of how paper is made

There is also this article on Stanford’s site that breaks down the ecological footprint of a paper plate. The figure they quoted for water usage was actually 16 times higher than what I said in my first post. 8 gallons per plate. Makes sense though when ya think about what is said in the video above how it’s mixed at a 200:1 ratio of water:wood pulp in the process of refining the trees.

Both cutting down the trees and wasting precious water are harmful. In India during auspicious occasions like wedding we have food on banana leaves.Its indeed a very environment conscious dining experience.Since the leaves are biodegradable it serves the environment as well.

@Smitha I love this idea. Beautiful and environmentally friendly.

A regular plate can usually be washed with just vinegar.

Thanks for all the great answers.

Except @Brian1946.

@simone54

Vinegar’s a good, non-toxic, low-water cleaning agent.

@simone54 , @Brian1946 is correct, vinegar makes an excellent cleaning agent. The only “problem” I would see though is that the water consumption to raise the plants that are later turned into vinegar would be higher than actually just using water in the first place.

What? Am I going to go buy a 55-gallon drum of vinegar to clean my dishes?

Also, there is water in vinegar.