[TheSupplyGuy]

I've been trying to work out in my head whether over the birth to death of paper, styrofoam, and glass plates, which take the least energy to use.

Styrofoam is automatically ruled out imo, because it's made from fossil fuels, and virtually never biodegrades.

Paper degrades, but I'm unsure how much energy it takes to make them.

Lastly, glass plates are reusuable, but they need to be washed, which then requires energy(unless you do it in a river/lake/whatever, which is an might be a bad idea depending on what you ate).

So I'm confounded as to which uses the least energy.

[strider3700]

I'm a programmer working in the forest industry. I have no exact numbers but I'd guess that paper takes crap loads of energy to produce from tree to plate.

I'd assume it's on par with glass. Glass is the winner even when you include washing mostly because washing uses far less energy then making a new plate.