I realized how much our idea of luxury is tied to waste this weekend while I was having dinner at a steakhouse in Boston to celebrate my sisters graduation.
For some reason, fancy restaurant owners feel that to justify charging $45 for a really good steak they need to have individual paper towels with their own logo in the bathroom. In the old days, paper towels with the logo were a luxury, today, steak is luxury, paper towel isn't. I'm sure some people would pay $50 for the same steak to a restaurant that makes a statement about reducing waste.
Is waste a by product of luxury? Or, is the concept of luxury based on waste (when wasting meant being able to afford under utilizing; like unnecessary packaging, lots of cars, leaving food on your plate, etc)?
One of the things we are working on at Slate is on switching from luxury = waste to luxury = luxury, eliminating waste from the equation.
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