Here's another look-I'm-in-India post: the disposable plates you can get on the street. I took this photo of the plate vendor at the KR City Market.
The plates are made from banana leaf. No bleaching, no printing--just leaves dried into the appropriate shape. It's not exactly the most hygienic approach, but here you learn to get over that. Another serving method is to use a flat, green banana leaf and serve food on it like a plate when you have South Indian meals (mmmm).
Here's a photo from close to the same stall where they're separating the banana components:
Also, to answer a previously asked question, "What is the weirdest thing you have smelled in India?" I would have to say it was the bulk banana sales stalls a few blocks away in the KR City market. Thousands of banana stalks, some of which are presumably rotting 1) does not smell like bananas the fruit at all, and 2) was a powerful enough smell to make me hurry to the next block, and I smell rotting garbage/sewage/animal matter daily.
