#Cutoutcutlery and #skipthestuff
Two Collective Action Campaigns to Reduce Food Service-related Plastic Waste
According to Upstream, "In the U.S., 561 billion disposable food service items are used every year, resulting in 4.9 million tons of waste. Americans use more than 36 billion utensils and as much as 142 billion straws each year. Most restaurants provide these accessories for take-out meals even if the customer doesn’t want or need them.
Reducing Unnecessary and Unwanted Takeout Waste
Designed and Led By Habits of Waste
We're partnering with Habits of Waste to support their #CutOutCutlery campaign. This initiative has convinced the four biggest app-based food delivery platforms in the U.S. to change their user interface so that disposable items, such as cutlery, are op-in, rather than provided by default.
We're supporting this campaign by expanding it to college campuses in the U.S. You can also check out their website to make a poster for your favorite restaurant or take-out location and ask them to opt-in.Driving Policy Change
Designed and Led by Upstream
We're proud to partner with Upstream's #SkipTheStuff national policy campaign organized through their National Reuse Network.
The goal is to enact policies in local and state government that require restaurants to “ask first” before adding all the unnecessary stuff to your order. Together we can get city, county and state legislatures to take action and enact a policy that:Requires every restaurant to ask the customer first before providing accessories
Requires meal delivery and online apps (like Uber Eats, GrubHub, Door Dash and Yelp) to post a menu of accessories (e.g. cutlery, napkins, straws, condiments, etc.) whereby a customer has to “opt-in” or select each item and quantity they want.
