Imagine you’re having a busy day at work and you visit your favorite restaurant for a quick lunch. When you receive your food, how much plastic is handed to you? Black plastic takeout boxes, plastic forks, knives, tray liners, drink lids, straws, stir sticks, condiments, plastic bags and plastic-coated paper wrappers.
In San Mateo County alone, single-use plastics cost the county $500 million a year. A large portion of single-use plastics are items, such as disposable food ware and cutlery, you might see when you dine in at a restaurant or order takeout. On Feb. 25, 2020, San Mateo County decided to adopt the Disposable Food Service Ware Ordinance, which banned disposable food service ware made of plastic and required compostable containers. All utensils are provided upon request, reducing food ware waste.
However, this ordinance only applies to food facilities that operate in unincorporated areas of the county. Each city then must individually adopt the policy. As of this writing, 17 of the 20 cities in San Mateo County have adopted the Disposable Food Service Ware Ordinance.
Launched in 2021, Reusable San Mateo County is a local environmental coalition advocating for the use of reusable food ware through policy and on-the-ground solutions. A cost and waste analysis by Reusables San Mateo County found that a typical restaurant in Redwood City could save $5,600 each year by converting to reusable food ware; even more, the entire Redwood City restaurant sector stands to save $743,000 each year. Converting to reusable food ware prevents 26 million disposable items from being purchased and discarded into the environment. With the community action effort led by Reusable San Mateo County, three of these cities, Daly City, Pacifica and Half Moon Bay, have added an amendment stating that food facilities must provide reusable food ware for dine in. Discontinuing the use of disposable food ware and switching to alternatives, such as reusable food ware, has shown multiple economic and environmental benefits.
In addition, there are many efforts being made to promote and advocate for the use of reusables that deserve to be given the spotlight.
A local environmental business, Okapi Reusables, offers a solution to prevent the waste of disposable cups! Having launched their reusable cup network in San Mateo, you can now borrow a reusable cup from your favorite cafes through the Okapi Reusables app. San Mateo businesses like Urban Ritual, 3 Bees Coffee, Heere Tea and Meet Fresh are all participating cafes. Roughly 120 billion single-use disposable cups are thrown away each year in the U.S., but Okapi Reusables is making a noticeable effort to stop this with their reusable cup program throughout the Bay Area, and further north in Portland, Oregon, and Vancouver, Washington.
Recommended for you
Working with the City of Burlingame, Reusable San Mateo County has launched a new pilot program for reusable food ware when ordering takeout from local Burlingame restaurants. The city is currently recruiting three to four local restaurants to try out reusable food ware for takeout orders. Restaurant customers would opt to use reusable food ware for their takeout order. When done, customers drop off the reusable containers at a participating restaurant.
Local Thai restaurant Coconut Bay on Howard Avenue is the first participating restaurant. If you would like to support their pioneering efforts, place your takeout order by calling (650) 558-8268 and ask for reusable takeout containers.
Some might say that compostable and bioplastic food ware offers the solution to single-use food ware. However, products made from bioplastics and PLA are green-washing — that is, they seem beneficial to the environment but are not actually certified to be composted. Therefore, consumers often have a false sense of eco-friendliness from misleading labels. Additionally, paper cups usually have a plastic lining, which makes them un-recyclable. Many times these plastic alternatives end up in landfills and oceans, just as other plastics do.
While there are already restaurants that use reusable food ware, many still offer a combination of reusables and disposables. Making reusables a reality in San Mateo County will not only aid the economic and environmental benefits of the community, but will also make your restaurant experience more enjoyable.
Eileen Liu is a sophomore at Menlo-Atherton High School in Atherton. Student News appears in the weekend edition. You can email Student News at news@smdailyjournal.com.
Thank you for this thorough and compelling column! We had a pilot come into our shop where he bought a few sets of ToGoWare, bamboo cutlery with a carrying pack and hook you can hook to your belt or purse or whatever. "I avoid throwing away hundreds of plastic forks, knives, and spoons this way and now I'm giving them to folks on my crew." He told me. He's trying to save the planet one meal at a time. Your column also pointed out something really important. Food service businesses can reduce waste which in turn reduces their costs which in turn helps their bottom lines! Thanks for educating us on this important topic and working to get cities on board.
Thank you for your perspective, Ms. Liu. While there may be some merit behind reusables being supplied for takeout, the devil is in the details. For example, if folks bring back reusable takeout containers, what policies are in place to wash/sterilize these containers before being sent to other consumers? And what is the rejection rate? How are costs for washing/sterilizing accounted for in net cost benefits? Does it reduce benefits by 30%, more? Will prices for takeout increase because reusable containers are not returned?
Thank you for your column, Eileen. It's also important to point out that restaurants are not the only ones responsible for the waste... as Craig's comment confirms! This will be a change in habits - both for the businesses AND for the consumers. I find that in most restaurants, I can take my leftovers home with me in my own stainless steel tiffins, and then no one is responsible for the cleaning but me. (Don't even need to ask, I just pull the tiffin out of my bag when I'm done eating!) Reuse is always the right answer, and naysayers who only bring up extra costs are not looking at the externalized costs of plastic or pollution, or are missing opportunities to get creative and make "the right thing to do" also be "the profitable thing to do". May we all get into the "right" habits!
Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO
personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who
make comments. Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd,
racist or sexually-oriented language. Don't threaten. Threats of harming another
person will not be tolerated. Be truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone
or anything. Be proactive. Use the 'Report' link on
each comment to let us know of abusive posts. PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK. Anyone violating these rules will be issued a
warning. After the warning, comment privileges can be
revoked.
Please purchase a Premium Subscription to continue reading.
To continue, please log in, or sign up for a new account.
We offer one free story view per month. If you register for an account, you will get two additional story views. After those three total views, we ask that you support us with a subscription.
A subscription to our digital content is so much more than just access to our valuable content. It means you’re helping to support a local community institution that has, from its very start, supported the betterment of our society. Thank you very much!
(3) comments
Thank you for this thorough and compelling column! We had a pilot come into our shop where he bought a few sets of ToGoWare, bamboo cutlery with a carrying pack and hook you can hook to your belt or purse or whatever. "I avoid throwing away hundreds of plastic forks, knives, and spoons this way and now I'm giving them to folks on my crew." He told me. He's trying to save the planet one meal at a time. Your column also pointed out something really important. Food service businesses can reduce waste which in turn reduces their costs which in turn helps their bottom lines! Thanks for educating us on this important topic and working to get cities on board.
Thank you for your perspective, Ms. Liu. While there may be some merit behind reusables being supplied for takeout, the devil is in the details. For example, if folks bring back reusable takeout containers, what policies are in place to wash/sterilize these containers before being sent to other consumers? And what is the rejection rate? How are costs for washing/sterilizing accounted for in net cost benefits? Does it reduce benefits by 30%, more? Will prices for takeout increase because reusable containers are not returned?
Thank you for your column, Eileen. It's also important to point out that restaurants are not the only ones responsible for the waste... as Craig's comment confirms! This will be a change in habits - both for the businesses AND for the consumers. I find that in most restaurants, I can take my leftovers home with me in my own stainless steel tiffins, and then no one is responsible for the cleaning but me. (Don't even need to ask, I just pull the tiffin out of my bag when I'm done eating!) Reuse is always the right answer, and naysayers who only bring up extra costs are not looking at the externalized costs of plastic or pollution, or are missing opportunities to get creative and make "the right thing to do" also be "the profitable thing to do". May we all get into the "right" habits!
Welcome to the discussion.
Log In
Keep the discussion civilized. Absolutely NO personal attacks or insults directed toward writers, nor others who make comments.
Keep it clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language.
Don't threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated.
Be truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything.
Be proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts.
PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.
Anyone violating these rules will be issued a warning. After the warning, comment privileges can be revoked.