Indie Food: Plate Project

Plate Project is about to begin, it’ll start on January 2012 in Mexico and thus will go round through 12 countries to return in 2013 with stories, travel recipes, and especially having reduced the use of disposable plates and cups. This performance is to raise awareness, share a bit of local food culture and create conscience about the global food situation. Follow it on its journey around the world by www.indiefoodproject.com from January 2012.

Inspired by the project "The Uniform Project" http://www.theuniformproject.com/ 

Rationale: The use of disposable materials is harmful to the environment, especially the use of Styrofoam. The use of these products is also unnecessary and recycling involves a lot of pollution. There are ecological and economic alternatives, which we will demonstrate through the "Plate Project." 

What is the Plate Project? 

Plate Project is a performance which consists, as its name indicates, in a dish made of a durable material and easy to wash that will travel around the world for a year. The dish will remain with a volunteer user for a period of one month before switching users and country.

The user will take it with him throughout the month in his purse or backpack, as well as a beverage container, and use it to get food and drink at parties, restaurants, stalls, etc..., demonstrating that that can reduce or even eliminate the use of disposables.

Objective: Create awareness about the production and use of disposables. Encourage people to reflect on their waste production as well as on their consumption of disposables, teach them to recycle when it does happen, share some of the local food and create awareness about the global food situation. The project also seeks to be known as a symbol of global unity among individuals around the world committed to the environment and sustainable food culture.

Documentation: the whole process will be documented through photographs and blog entries www.plateproject.org at IF (Indie Food)www.indiefoodproject.com where the volunteer user can also talk about local food culture and the dishes eaten on the plate in festivals, traditions, etc... The user is free to write about what he loved the most related to the local food.

In the end, there will be a log of everything eaten on our dish (food around the world) and the approximate number of paper plates that were avoided. At the end of the year there will be a final count of how many plates and glasses were saved.

The countries visited by the Plate during the year 2012, will represent different regions of the planet.

By now the following are the participating countries confirmed: 

Mexico, Fiji, India, Sweden, UAE, Canada, Colombia, Hong Kong, UK and Chile.

Twitter @indiefood

#plateproject