Wasara: No trees were harmed during the making of these paper plates

Paper plates, for most of us, are a use 'em and lose 'em affair. No breakages. No washing up. Everybody's happy. (Apart from a few trees maybe). But you can be sure when a Japanese company decides to get involved, it brings with it elegant design and practical functionality. And, those trees and their huggers can dry their weeping-willow eyes, because Wasara disposable tableware is not only effortlessly beautiful, it's eco-friendly to boot.

Wasara makes 14 dishes and vessels, including a sleek sushi plate that features a built-in soy sauce holder. Designed by Shinichiro Ogata of the interior design firm Simplicity, each piece has two distinct surfaces -- smooth on the top, and roughly textured on the bottom -- to invoke the feel of Japanese ceramics.

Wasara's products are made from three materials: bagasse sugar cane fiber, bamboo and reed pulp. All are readily available and rapidly renewable resources. While the materials are not recycled, bagasse is a by-product of the sugar refining process that is often used to make insulated disposable food containers.

But isn't the manufacture of disposable tableware at odds with the idea of sustainability?

"In cases where convenience demands the use of disposables, we feel that it's a more eco-friendly choice to use ones that are not made from wood pulp -- which is often virgin material, meaning trees were cut down expressly to make said products -- and instead use ones that are manufactured in a more considered way and from 100% renewable resources," says Paul Donald of Branch Home, Wasara's North American distributor.

Wasara is available at design-centric shops in Tokyo such as Cibone (Aoyama Bell Commons B1, Kita-Aoyama 2-14-6, Minato-ku, 03 3475 8017, cibone.com) and Kakitsubata (Aobadai 2-16-7, Meguro-ku, tel. 03 3770 3401), as well as online in Europe and North America.