Consternation among students as single-use cutlery banned

Oliver Lamb Deputy Editor

CONFUSION and consternation have reigned among the nation’s students since a ban on single-use cutlery and crockery was announced earlier this month. One discombobulated undergraduate was Harry Smithereen, who spoke to Exeposé “It’s really confusing,” he said, sit- ting in his kitchen as an acrid cloud of mould hung over the mountain of dirty dishes by the sink. Pressed on what he meant, he explained that he uses all of his tableware once only.

“Use them multiple times?!” he spluttered, when this was suggested to him. “Don’t be silly. You leave your dirty plates by the sink and use a new one the next day, or reuse a dirty one if you can’t be bothered. Everyone I know does that. And now we’re all wondering what we’re going to use if single-use cutlery and crockery is banned. Do we eat out of our hands?” takes 200 years to decompose. But Harry’s dishes are made of china, so they could be piled up in his kitchen for a lot longer than that.

Announcing the ban, environment secretary Thérèse Coffey said that a single-use plastic fork

The ban will reportedly cover plates, bowls and trays used in restaurants, cafés or takeaways, but not in supermarkets and shops. Perhaps, then, Harry and his fellow students could eat straight from shop shelves. “It would certainly save time,” Harry agrees.