More than singles
Not sure if this is unique to Texas, but it sure is unique in my experience.
Off-site meeting, food ordered from a local caterer. Lunch today was "sandwiches, assorted." A dozen white boxes show up, like small cake or pie boxes. Each box contains a sandwich, chips, mustard, mayo, napkin, and knife. Assorted turkey, ham, roast beef, veggie. So far so good.
The odd part is that the sandwiches are do-it-yourself. The bread, meat, cheese, and lettuce/tomato slice are all separately packaged in four ZipLoc bags. Oh, and the meat is sliced, folded in half, and wrapped in yet another piece of plastic before it is placed in the plastic bag. To DIY-build your own sandwich, you open each bag, take out the contents, assemble them in the order and placement you want, squish and spread condiments, slice, and serve.
And you're left with four empty plastic bags that never had much of a career, as plastic bags go. Seems excessive, four bags. Three slices of ham, folded in half, wrapped in plastic, placed in a zippered bag, and then sealed. One lonely cheese slice in a bag, sealed. One lonely piece of lettuce, one lonely slice of tomato, placed in a bag, sealed. And two slices of bread -- two, at least they could keep each other company -- in a bag, sealed.
Hyper, ultra, mega over-packaging. I mean, Kraft Singles are bad enough: one little slice of cheese -- which itself is fairly plastic, but that's a different rant -- wrapped individually in plastic, then sardined with a dozen of its compatriots and wrapped in more plastic. This is worse. Each slice is wrapped in plastic sheet and plastic bag.
Can this be a Texas thing? Is there so much oil here that we have to wrap a modest sandwich in so much petrochemical product?
2009-12-10
