BY: ABIGAIL FRISOLI
Asst. Photo Editor
I personally am not a fan of the new containers at Linda’s. When I first saw them, I got mildly excited because they looked recyclable, and indeed they are. However, I have not yet come across one recycling bin in which I can recycle these food containers. The only recycling bins that are even available are the ones for bottles, and who’s to say that the things that go in these bins really do end up getting recycled. I could wait until I get home to recycle my container, but I am not about to carry around a used food container with me all day, and it is not like the dorms have recycling bins regardless.
Recycling aside, the containers are just terribly inconvenient. As bad as the see-through, plastic containers were for the environment, their functionality was about 100 times better. For example, it was nice to have the attached lid of the container, because it could be used as an extra space to spread out food at times and sometimes you just need the extra room.
On top of that, it was easy to open and close. When I am at Linda’s in a rush and am carrying a bunch of things, I do not have the available time or hands that I need to open my container if I go from one station to another. With Linda’s old containers I could just pop open the top and seal it again with one hand.
Another aspect to the old Linda’s containers that had made them better than the new ones is that they were see through. Nobody needed to fumble around and try to open the containers so that they could show an employee what was inside, which holds up the already extremely slow, long lines at the one (occasionally two) registers. Not to mention that it is nearly impossible to get the new containers closed again, and it is not a possible feat when you are trying to seal your container back up in two seconds so that the next person in line can pay for their food.
These new containers are sealed by folding over the flaps and hooking one end through a slit in another end, which is all fun and games until you try to eat out of the container and the flaps get in the way.
This is particularly frustrating when eating something that requires a fork, such as a salad, and the flaps keep blocking your wrist from getting inside. It also causes a person to have to pick up anything that is inside of the container in a strange, convoluted way, and therefore having to put his or her hand directly down straight into the container from the top, and hoping that he or she can grab it because it is impossible to see the food that is inside of the containers.
I was excited when I came back to Sacred Heart and found that Linda’s had introduced new, recyclable containers to their facility. However, it took almost no time at all to realize that these containers are more of a hassle than anything else, and to be honest, how many of these containers are really getting recycled anyway? Probably not many more than beforehand is the sad but realistic truth. Straws are one thing to abolish, but do not get rid of my plastic Linda’s containers too.
