AHS has been using plastic spoons for a long while, but recently there has been a big change. Eco friendly wooden spoons have fully overhauled regular plastic spoons.

This change comes after a big movement that’s been happening all over the country, meant to make everything eco friendly. An example of this is metal straws, which are meant to replace all plastic straws and make drinking coffee or whatever beverage eco friendly or “safe.”

“It’s a weird addition to the lunch line in my opinion,” said freshman Jimmy Makaranga 

These wooden spoons and forks are fairly new, only being at Annandale for about a week, and some students are already complaining about difficulties with these spoons. 

Freshman Andrew Ngyuen said, “My only complaint is that the spoons taste like wood.”

Wooden utensils have an odd taste to them. When you eat something with the spoons, the food you ate also has a slight hint of wood in it, which ruins many people’s experiences when eating food.

Makeranaga added, “I wish plastic spoons came back, I don’t really like wood spoons because of the taste.”

Another problem with these new utensils is that it is very difficult to pick up food with these utensils, given that plastic is more bendable while wood just can’t bend. 

This issue could be resolved by modifying the general design of these spoons.

Also, the wooden forks have a problem in their sharpness. They’re more blunt than sharp since it’s wood, so it’s a struggle to pick up small foods like corn kernels or peas. This could be easily resolved by just making the forks more sharp,  but not too sharp.

“It’s weird how there all the sudden replacing these utensils with wood eco friendly stuff,” said senior Jason White

Overall, eco-friendly utensils, while having good goals in mind, are not liked by everyone, and can sometimes be controversial for various different reasons. Are wooden utensils here to stay? That will be determined in the future, but for now we are going to have to get used to these new ways of eating.