I am a big fan of using styrofoam plates, bowls, and plastic folks when I’m camping in the woods. Not so much paper plates, because styrofoam burns better in a hot fire, especially when wet and contaminated with food. It’s also cheap. Regular plates are fine for at home, but when your water supply is limited, using disposable, and burnable plates makes a lot of sense – plus then you don’t have to deal with dish water contaminated with food waste, attracting bears or other wildlife.

That said, I am well aware of the environmental downsides to using styrofoam.

Styrofoam is made out of styrene which is non-biodegradable, and as a petrochemical is a hazardous material. Breathing in styrene gases in an enclosed space, according to the government can make one nauseous and is a probable carcinogen. If you just take a match to a styrofoam plate and don’t burn it in a hot fire it certainly burns with a black smoke and bright yellow from the polyaromic hydrocarbons, and smells fairly nasty.

Styrofoam, as litter, quickly falls apart and become small enough to be digested by fish and other animals, leaving the toxic styrene to be eaten by the fish. One shouldn’t litter, and I certainly do not litter. Anything that isn’t fully burned, I pack out. While most garbage minimally biodegradable in a landfill, styrofoam is completely un-biodegradable, and only may leach out the styrene compounds into the lechate system or groundwater.

The mass-urban use of styrofoam isn’t a good thing. Restaurants shouldn’t use styrofoam, indeed I have argued that it should be banned for take-out containers in favor of paper containers. But in the back-country,  where pollution levels are low, and general use of land is low, I don’t see the big deal about using styrofoam.

It’s cheap, burns well, and beats washing dishes with a limited water supply.