Aside from being bad for the environment, the cost of manufacture of airline food and beverage packaging – and transporting to landfill or recycling – must contribute to higher ticket prices. Do canned and bottled drinks really need to come with a plastic glass to be poured into unless those beverages need to be further chilled on ice? Is there a health risk from drinking directly from the lip of a can or bottle after it has been handled by serving staff?
Worse still are the often-unused plastic knife-and-fork sets in sealed envelopes that automatically come with finger food such as sandwiches and brownies.
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I have yet to see anyone cut their bite-sized, easily handheld, room-temperature food with these redundant implements. Please do not claim that for one-size-fits-all meal types it is more convenient to hand out a range of unnecessary dining implements to all passengers, just to satisfy that rare traveller who demands a set for god knows what reason.
Joseph Ting, Brisbane