A disposable item many of us interact with regularly is paper plates. Whenever we are in a setting where we are eating meals but do not want a lot of cleanup, we use paper plates and disposable cutlery. These items obviously are meant to be temporary substitutes for their real counterparts, and what separates them is the ability to clean and reuse them. If you try to clean a paper plate, it will fall apart, so any messes that end up on the plate can not be cleaned off. This is what makes these paper plates disposable. Any food residue that ends up on them can not be cleaned off, so eventually they will mold, or attract insects, and they might cause a health risk if they were reused on a different day. The item itself is made from paper, a material that is not known to be particularly durable, and although paper can be composted or recycled, most of these paper plates would probably end up in the trash and taken to the dump. Especially in larger party settings, in which paper plates are used the most, it often becomes a hassle to separate trash and keep track of how people are disposing of things, so having a single place to dispose of things is often easier for cleanup.