Attention Restaurant Owners

Takeout orders from restaurants have skyrocketed in the past year. The shift from dining out to ordering in comes with an explosion of plastic and paper packaging. Ideally, we would all be able to bring in our reusable containers and ask restaurants to pack our meals in those. Realistically, that’s a big ask. But I do have two requests for restaurant owners.

1. Please do not automatically include paper napkins and plastic forks, spoons, and knives with to-go orders.

Most of your customers are enjoying their meals at home, where they have metal utensils. Some customers even use cloth rather than paper napkins, but in any case, they probably don’t need more. But the default practice seems to be to toss in plastic utensils wrapped in plastic film. While I can see doing so if customers are planning to eat on the go, there’s no longer a good reason to continue routinely giving people plastic forks.

2. Consider reusable or compostable packaging for meals.

There are lots of options out there besides Styrofoam containers (expanded polystyrene or EPS, sometimes just called “foam”). If you are located in Seattle or another city that bans EPS for food packaging, you already had to transition to another type of plastic, coated paper, or compostable containers.

If you’re still using Styrofoam, you are probably doing so because you’re accustomed to it or because it is inexpensive. But you’re not necessarily saving as much money as you think. Plus, if you follow request #1, you might save money even if you switch to a more eco-friendly container.

I ran the numbers based on pricing from a restaurant supply store.

Example #1: Meals packaged in rectangular containers, 9”x6”

Hinged foam containers: $107 for 1000

Hinged compostable containers made from sugarcane-based agricultural waste: $162.45 for 1000

That’s an additional cost of $0.055 (5.5 cents) per meal.

But 1000 sets of individually wrapped utensils costs $41.96. Get rid of those, and you can provide compostable containers for only 1.3 cents per meal more than you were paying for foam plus utensils.

Example #2: Soup packaged in 16-ounce round containers

Foam containers without lids: $37.99 for 500

Plastic lids: $21.95 for 500

Polypropylene (PP) containers with lids: $58.33 for 500

The PP containers actually cost less than foam!

As an added benefit, they are microwave safe, so your customers can reheat their soup in the container if it cools down on the trip home. If you stop giving customers spoons, you save an additional $12 for the 500 orders of soup.

I realize that most of my blog readers do not own restaurants. But I have some ideas for you, the customer. You can share the above requests with your favorite restaurants in several ways.

1. If you order from a delivery service, check the box that says “please do not include utensils or napkins” if that’s an option. But, from my experience checking the box is often not sufficient (see photo). And it doesn’t help to contact the delivery service because their drivers just pick up the prepackaged meal with whatever the restaurant employees put into the bag.

The line I circled in red says, “Include napkins and utensils? NO”

2. I suggest going a step further and calling the restaurant once you place an order to remind them of your no-utensil preference. When I did this recently and suggested to the employee on the phone to change their policy and only include utensils if customers request them, he thanked me and said he would bring it up with his manager. And my order didn’t include utensils or napkins.

3. Here’s another tip for those of you who have school-age children at home. They can write letters to their favorite restaurants saying, “I love your food but don’t like the plastic forks and spoons.” You might even suggest to your child’s teacher that they make it a homework assignment.

I still remember when I was in 5th grade and we had a group project to design a space station. This was in the late 1970s, well before the International Space Station existed. I wrote a pretend letter explaining to the US government why we needed funding to buy trees to put in our space station. Our imaginary project was supposedly happening many years in the future, so I drew a stamp on the envelope and labeled it 20 cents, twice the current price of a first-class stamp. Little did I know that I would be mailing letters with real 20-cent stamps when I was in high school.

But I digress. My point is that a letter-writing assignment might provide lasting memories. Your children can write letters that they really share with their favorite restaurants. And in the US, they can mail those letters with a 55-cent stamp.

4. You can ask restaurants to pack your meal in a container that you provide, but they won’t necessarily grant that request. Still, you can ask about their packaging and suggest more environmentally friendly options.

A few caveats here: packaging labeled “eco-friendly” isn’t necessarily compostable even in industrial composting facilities. Most paper boxes are coated with plastic inside. If grease from the food doesn’t seep through the box, it is not compostable.

Also, containers with a recycling symbol are not necessarily recyclable, as I discuss at length in my book, Rethink the Bins. Many cities only recycle certain shapes of plastic containers. But you can clean and reuse PP containers, many of which are dishwasher-safe, for storing leftovers in the fridge or freezer.

Good luck with your efforts and let me know if you convince any restaurants to change their policies.