QUESTION

Denver, CO

It seems environmentally wasteful to buy a new set of dishes to be used one week per year. Would it be acceptable to buy glass dishes and glass serving plates from goodwill to use for Pesach?

ANSWER

While I think there are cases where you can assume that glass isn’t boleya/that it is kasherable, we tend to be quite strict around these things over Pesach, and the environmental cost of buying one set of dishes for a one-week-a-year use seems to me to not warrant leniency. If this family only buys all their stuff—clothes, cars, etc.,—secondhand, come back to me and we can talk. If not, let’s start worrying about the environment in those areas first.