I still do it when called upon, but I wish there was a better way to eat at fast-food places and picnics and campouts and birthday parties and boating expeditions and... and... and well there are a host of places where the ubiquitousness of the plastic knife, fork, and spoon presents itself.
A few bites, a few morsels of food, and the imperishable cutlery gets tossed into the garbage bin, to be immortalized in a landfill.
What a waste of valuable oil!
Now, I could carry around my own silverware, but that begs the question of where I'm going to put it when I'm done with it. In a plastic bag? Well, knives and fork tines can easily punch through a plastic bag. I could rinse the food off in a nearby bathroom -- most of the time, at least.
I did find a Web site with some suggestions about how to cut down on the use of plastic -- they suggest bringing silverware from home and using it instead of the plastic stuff. Might work if the silverware could be washed somewhere; that still leaves the problem of transport. I actually like company cafeterias with dishwashers.
Perhaps part of the solution is offering more edible ways to eat things. OK, like this: let's say that you've got a picnic serving hot dogs, salad, and macaroni & cheese (or beans). Hot dogs don't need utensils. Serve the salad with pita bread or tortillas, roll it up, and eat it that way. Serve the mac&cheese or beans with either the big corn chip Frito scoops or heavy-duty tortilla chips, and use them to eat the mac&cheese or beans, then eat the scoop.
Well, it's a start. I could start carrying my own bag of Fritos...