it's a waste that's not necessary
It's not obvious to me how that compares to the waste of water and soap in using disposable plates.
we mostly have these shitty flimsy plastic plates
Just stack several of them.
Come on, water is easily renewable and degradable. Plastic is definitely not and even though paper is recyclable, it costs a lot more energy than a fair amount of water and a drop of soap.
Two of the main resources people have are time and money. The world offers many opportunities to trade one for the other, at widely varying rates.
I've often heard people recommend trading money for time in the abstract, but this advice is rarely accompanied by specific recommendations on how to do so.
How do you use money to buy time or otherwise make your life better/easier?
See also the flip-side of this post, "what are you surprised people pay for instead of doing themselves?"