How to help take out restaurants reduce waste
March 18, 2010 in section: Blog, Guest Posts by Mrs Green with 21,248 views
Lisa encourages us to help restaurants reduce waste
Our guest post this week is from Lisa Borden, who is an eco-advocate and mother of three. Her business is a direct reflection of her commitment to better, more responsible living. She is a dedicated workaholic, admitting that it takes a lot of time and effort to change the world, especially in her non-preachy, fun, engaging and inspiring ways.
Lisa consults, writes, engages the media, runs private workshops, and enjoys speaking to large and small groups. Her full-service marketing firm, Borden Communications + Design Inc. is based in Toronto, Canada and takes great pride in being an ethical business providing exceptional ideas.
Today she’s talking about the amount of waste created by takeout restaurants.
Convenience and waste
It takes approximately 20 seconds to put our food into take out containers. Convenient? No, actually extremely inconvenient. The packaging can remain in our landfills forever, causing continued damage to us and our world. The American population tosses out enough paper bags and plastic cups, forks and spoons every year to circle the equator 300 times (www.cleanair.org). Wouldn’t it be better to fill our stomachs and not our landfills?
Take out, outside the box
Since restaurants add so much to our waste-line (read as waist-line too!), and we frequent them regularly (of course, taking your meals from home is the best way to go – check out all of these “Eating outside the box” ideas and tools ) help your restaurant help you reduce your waste (and it will be great for all of us too!).
Here are 10 easy things for restaurants to do that will, in the end, be great for our health, wallet and the world! Don’t worry about taking notes or memorizing the list, you can download wallet cards for FREE and pass them along to everyone.
Take out with out
Join Take out With out, the campaign to reduce restaurant waste.
It’s free, helpful and will fill you up with some great ideas and free downloads
Ditch the disposables
Use reusables instead of disposables for everything possible.
That’s your job – yes, people might stare, but remember, you are a trendsetter and it’ll soon catch on – just like reusable water bottles have over the past years.
Compostable tableware
Encourage them to use compostable, safe options for their required disposables.
We get that restaurants don’t want to give takeout patrons a cloth napkin, but no need for them to use virgin paper all bleached and processed! Ick!
Reduce packaging
Reduce the amount of packaging to what is only absolutely necessary.
No double bagging please. If you aren’t going to use them, don’t take a handful of ketchup packets, soy sauces, straws or cutlery! Supply and demand. If you are taking your takeout meal home, we’re hoping you have cutlery there?!
Reuse
Suggest they sell smart & safe solutions (reusables) such as bottles, containers, straws, bags etc.
Imagine seeing an amazing container or a glass straw…it might inspire you. You may buy one or more. The restaurant will make money while encouraging new habits and creating awareness. If they offer an incentive to keep bringing the container back, you’ll be a more loyal customer. The restaurant will have less of a need for disposables, saving them money, and saving our precious resources. Win, win win!
Incentives
Encourage them to incent their customers to bring/use reusables by offering a discount or something for free (they should be able to afford it – see #5 above).
Who doesn’t love getting supersized? Wouldn’t you bring your own mug if you were getting more? Or bring your own bag if you were able to get something for free because of it?
Recycle and compost
Recycle and compost on site.
This is an easy one. In Toronto, we are already sorting everything at home into compost, recycling and garbage. It should be happening everywhere else in the city also.
Donate
Suggest donating surplus food to a community meal service or directly to those in need.
Random acts of kindness rock our world!
Gratitude
Applaud them! Change comes from without.
Tell them how great they are and send customers their way because of all the good they are doing.
Spread the word
Let them know to pass this on to others and encourage them to be TWO champions.
They will want to inspire others just like you’ve inspired them!
Together we can change the outrageous amount of unnecessary waste we create everyday as well as drastically reduce it. Don’t’ forget, we are the customers, and aren’t we always right? Your power lies in your wallet and your voice matters. That’s got to be worth trying for!
Urgent request - please read!
5 ways to reduce food waste with Natural Collection
Using up Sunday lunch leftovers
8 food waste hacks: never throw food away again
Bins are where the profits lay!
Welcome to National Zero Waste Week!
We’re going to Oxford and would love to meet you!
It’s not just National Zero Waste Week!
In a world where it has become normal to complain about everything and to fight the status quo–it is so engaging to read such an article which instead encourages us to give positive feedback to those who feed forward.
Forward to full use of foods, forward to re-cycling of goods. i can digest that easily. thanks for posting.
Great post!! Must read it again when less sleepy!!
Have been discussing options for an eco (possibly zero waste?) event locally - not sure how well we can do? (No big composting facilities locally - so not sure, would compostable plates be at all okay? How safe are they for a garden/farm, what procedures and materials are used? Plastic plates are tricky, perhaps could be recycled if rinsed at least and brought to the factory that recycles them. Not sure if manufacturers might switch plastics there too. Event organizer said she wouldn’t want to fish hired reusable plates out of the bushes! So…??)