The BYO Tableware Tradition

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For our food-centric events, in the interest of reducing & reusing before recycling, we ask our event guests to bring their own re-useable tableware, including:

• Plates & bowls.

• Spoons, forks, knives, & other eating utensils.

• A mug for hot beverages.

• A cup/bottle for cold beverages.

• Take-home containers for leftovers.

  
  

We will have dispose-able/compost-able versions available, but we want to make taking the responsibility of bringing our own re-useable tableware a group event tradition.

Want to know more? Get in touch at https://miconnection.wixsite.com/welcome

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Hi, I'm Katrina. I realize that this is my first blog post on our website, though you've seen me post on our Facebook page. This all was my brainchild.

Back in early 2017, I worked with a small group of Standing Rock supporters who had been hosting demonstrations in Grand Rapids to raise awareness of the Standing Rock Water Protectors to form the Grand Rapids Water Protectors. Like many Water Protector groups around the country at the time, we adopted the Lakota tradition of regular potluck meals as important community resource sharing, and we further adopted the Lakota potluck tradition of everyone bringing their own re-useable tableware, instead of using disposable tableware. The Lakota people put out some beautiful infographics about the practice and tradition at the time of the national movement, which of course I don't have and can't find 9 years later - if any Water Protectors still have those documents and are willing to share them with us, please do, I would love to have them again!

I won't try to tell you why the Lakota do it, but I will tell you why I'd like us to start right out with the practice:

• As we said in the flyer, reducing and re-using should come before recycling in all ways possible, and bringing your own re-useable tableware to a communal meal is a very easy way to do the first two before the third.

  
  

• We are starting absolutely all of this with no money. Purely donations of food, space, and volunteer hours. If you can bring your own tableware and take care of it yourself after the party, that saves us purchasing disposables, and having to find a volunteer to handle clean-up and dumpster duty.

  
  

• If you are Neurodivergent, and the tiny plastic spoon is your greatest nemesis, you can literally bring your favorite spoon with you. It's not even going to look like an accommodation, everyone will be doing it.

  
  

• You know I'll be looking out for the perfect carry-bag to keep this all in at Helping Hands and the 3 Witches Femme Clothing Swap! Having dedicated table gear for these and other community meal events, and washing your table gear and getting it right back into the carry-bag to store for the next event makes this really easy.

  
  

• I just love how the idea of concentric circles of community care it represents parallels our goals for this program - care for yourself by planning ahead a little and having a better dining experience by eating with real plates and cutlery, care for the other people at the event by taking responsibility for your own dishes, care for how much waste we're sending off to the landfill and how long it'll be there... thinking about the ripples outward our decisions make, no matter how small the action seems, is how we're going to see our way through into the future.

I took to this pretty easily because I had been taking my own "feast gear" to Society for Creative Anachronism events all my teenage years, so I was familiar with the concept. As someone familiar, in addition to the basics from the flyer above, you may also want to include in your table gear bag:

• Hand wipes/Wet Wipes. Dollar Tree has a huge assortment.

• Hand sanitizer. Not really needed if your wipes are antibacterial.

• Plastic bags/trash bags & twisty ties. We'll have a chicken scrap bucket for the food bits, but if you just want to put all the dirty dishes away until you get home to deal with it, that's how you do it without it being disgusting.

• Extra doses of medications you may need, especially around food/digestive needs: EpiPen, antacids, digestive enzymes, migraine rescue meds, etc. Don't make me get all yr Auntie on you about this.

• Toothpicks, if not a travel-sized dental hygiene kit.

Lastly, I wouldn't recommend bringing anything that's really heavy, or easily breakable. Check out thrifted Corelle, wheat straw, stainless steel, and melamine (note that melamine and stainless steel are not microwave safe, the first two options are). I'm honestly not sure how to best end a very long and thorough blog post about tableware, but here we are, at the end of a very long and thorough blog post about tableware. I hope to see you and your favorite spoon at our upcoming events soon!