Looking to see if you know of any restaurants doing anything interesting for reducing takeout plastic waste.
Deposit for using Pyrex? Discount for byo? Etc
Y’all can afford to eat at restaurants?
My local traditional chinese restaurant (basically only take away) uses paper, cardboard and wood for cups, sticks or cutlery. Also paper bags.
And the food is delicious!
Plastic straws are completely gone from all establishments where I live. The last one to do was Tim Horton’s, which happened in the last couple years.
They replaced them with paper straws coated in PFAS, as far as I know.
Source on the PFAS?
Here’s one: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/08/230825122044.htm I don’t know about Tim Horton’s specifically, just saying that you might want to just forgo straws altogether.
Thanks!
Jesus, as if PFAS aren’t prevalent enough, let’s just suck them up through a tube straight into our faces!
I will be foregoing straws for sure
ELI5, if plastic and paper are both recyclable and both not ideal for the environment, why is one better than the other?
Neither will be recycled, but one comes from a renewable resource, and the other from non-renewable. Also, paper biodegrades while plastic doe not
Mainly because plastic is not actually recyclable.
It’s like bread dough and bread. Reshaping bread dough is easy. The same process doesn’t work for bread, but you can grind it into crumbs and make other foods with it. You probably won’t be able to make the same kind of bread, but you can use it for thickening sauces or deep frying things and it is a form of recycling. Trying to then recycle the next food is much harder.
Not real restaurant, but I’ve seen a lot of “to go” food shop offering a small discount if you bring your own box.
Nowadays, I feel like most of the plastic is replaced by paper, I even see some place using biscuit box for sauces.
Almost every restaurant in Chicago uses waxed cardboard and bioplastic for everything.
All the ones I know of are technically reducing plastic, but only one or two have stopped using it.
In Germany you can usually bring your own containers for takeout. Many restaurants have also switched to using paper-based takeout containers.
I’m always wondering if these brown “paper” / “cardboard” packaging materials are actually plastic-free (I’m also almost certain they’re since “compostable” packaging is still allowed to contain absurd (20%?) amounts in some jurisdictions). The worst thing is that most come without anything to identify them by so even if some are we’ll never know!
As far as I’m aware they are not - they have a lining inside that contains plastic. At least that’s what I remember of paper coffee cups for example. But yes - where I live they are still supposed to be sorted as paper products.
Costco food court doesn’t seem to have any straws at all anymore, paper or plastic. There are still using plastic lids, but they have a little flap in them sort of like a coffee cup lid that you can sip through.
No discounts and nothing advertised, but I know a few local restaurants that are more than happy to give you your take out meals in your own container if you ask for it. Wouldn’t hurt to ask about it the next time you make an order somewhere.
Paper boxes
Paper boxes may be equally bad or even worse, since many of them are coated with PFAS (aka “forever chemicals”) - which can leach into your food and the environment.
Now whilst the FDA has banned sale of PFAS-coated containers earlier this year, it is expected that such products may remain on the market till sometime next year. Of course, it also doesn’t stop someone from ordering cheap PFAS-loaded boxes from AliExpress or elsewhere. And if you’re not in the US, you’d have to find out if there’s a similar ban in your country, and/or verify whether the manufacturer of whatever container/utensil you’re using is PFAS-free.
It would also be prudent to check even non-paper food-related products (spoons, spatulas, chopping boards etc). Even so called 100% recyclable “food safe” plastic, bio-plastics made from plant pulp, and traditionally eco-friendly wooden containers and utensils may be coated with PFAS.
There is this IMHO very interesting solution from India that uses edible cutlery products. It’s basically a form of hard baked bread in the shape of knives, forks, spoons, plates, bowls, … . They keep hot and liquid food very well for quite some time, and the forks, knives and spoons remain solid enough to eat perfectly well with. Eventually, they will disintegrate on their own within a few weeks or so if you don’t eat them first. All this without the need to cover the surfaces with anything at all, and also made so cheaply that they come very close to most current disposable solutions.
