National Trust - a change in policy? No longer saving the planet ?

Primrose

As a member I was perturbed to note that a favourite location has abandoned the use of real cups and plates at its cafe and has moved to disposable cutlery and throwaway plates. I wonder if forum members have seen this policy being adopted nationwide? It seems to fit poorly with a charity whose main policy is conservation.

Given the massive numbers of visitors to some locations surely this is an awful waste of natural resources as opposed to washing items up.?

trailingspouse

Which property? I'm not aware of a nationwide policy to do this. Maybe there was a simple explanation - eg dishwasher broken on the day you were there. Why don't you just ask them, I'm sure they'd be happy to explain.

Tiddlywinks

I've not seen this happening anywhere either - why not go onto their Facebook page and ask them?

It would be a shame if we all got outraged before knowing the facts.

PasturesNew

Maybe it saves them £10/hour on the wages for somebody to do the washing up, empty/clean the dishwasher - and the cost of owning the dishwasher and buying the supplies for it ... and the water bill.

What'd you do, as a business, if you could spend £5/day on disposable stuff.... or £70/day employing somebody to "mostly stand around looking busy"?

jackyann

I regularly used to visit a NT property where they used 'recyclable disposables' for various reasons. I don't go there anymore, so don't know if that has changed, the one I go to occasionally now has proper crockery, and it's washed up by volunteers.
I had always assumed that decisions were made individually by each property, with regard to environmental, and other considerations. I would either ask at the venue itself, or the NT nationally.

[Deleted User]

My DGS Jack washes dishes at the weekend in a local cafe and earn £4.00 an hour ,two weeks ago he went into work on the sunday and because it was sunny and everyone was out enjoying the sun he was told to go home .Bless him he wasn't happy as it cost him £5.00 retun on the bus which as a young lad he could ill afford out of his wages he would love £10.00 an hour and he washes by hand not in a machine either

maman

I've not been to a NT property for a few weeks. It's possible if it was over Easter that they were using disposables to keep up with increased visitor numbers and maybe volunteers not being so available over the holidays.


I do hope it's not a change in policy though. Aside from the conservation aspect, it's far more enjoyable and 'civilised' drinking from a proper cup.:)

fewgroats

I've been to some properties that you have to use disposable cups as they only have a coffee machine. Can't name any specifically, maybe someone else can.

norfolksaver

I went to Ixworth House in Suffolk last week and the only place using disposable plates and cups was the outdoor Cafe. We had lunch in the restaurant and no disposable items were used in there.

The disposable items we used for coffe and a cake were put in the large recycling bin they had.

jackyann

JackieO - I was just calculating how much that compared to my own 'Saturday job' 50 years ago. £1 for an 8 hour day - but there was never a question of being sent home - if we were slack then we did extra cleaning, stock-taking etc.
Probably the biggest change is actually the bus fare: a 10 mile trip cost me 30 minutes wages. There was a very kind bus conductress who would recognise those of us who had school bus passes (only valid Mon-Fri) and would say 'oh I'm not taking money off you girls when you're working on a Saturday', so we used to hope she was on our route!

PasturesNew

JackieO wrote: »

.... £10.00 an hour ...

I was calculating the employer's cost, not what they pay the NMW person doing the work. There's also other costs, NI potential, holiday pay, maternity pay if people are there for awhile, potential for disabled adjustments, H&S assessments, ... etc etc. And the cost of recruitment and 'training' ("Here's a tap, this is how you turn it on...right, you're set then")