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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

packaging waste

Cove’s Biodegradable Water Bottle Inches Closer to Market (But Don’t Expect Plastic Waste to Disappear Anytime Soon)

Is the end of the plastic water bottle finally in sight?

According to a story in Bloomberg, one startup’s vision of delivering a fully biodegradable plastic alternative to the water bottle is inching closer to reality after years of development and delays.

Cove, a company that has raised $20 million since its founding in 2018, says it is close to finally shipping its bottle, a product made using fermented cooking oil. The California-based company says that oil, which is turned into a polymer called polyhydroxyalkanoates, or PHA, eventually dissolves in water or soil without leaving behind toxic waste or residue.

From Bloomberg:

“…the PHA pellets move to Cove’s 25,000-square-foot factory, where they are sent through machinery to vacuum away moisture, sift out metal, and stretch, cut and mold the material into a hollow canister fit for water. A label is then printed directly onto each bottle (“Cove’s plastic-free, renewable bottles”). The ink, made from algae, is meant to biodegrade, too. Water from a purification plant nearby is poured in. By Cove’s estimates, its bottles will disintegrate in water and soil in under five years.”

The progress towards a final, shippable product hasn’t come quickly. The company not only struggled early on with finding the right material recipe that would provide a water bottle that could withstand freezing or high temperatures and survive drop tests, but has also taken some time to optimize the production of the bottle. After initially working with outsourced manufacturers, the company brought production in-house. You can see a little of the production facility at work in the video update from the company CEO Alex Totterman below:

Progress Update - Production is Live

According to the company, the bottles will cost about $2.99 a piece initially, which tells me that these are not intended to really replace the standard water bottle anytime soon (the cost of a traditional plastic water bottle costs well below that, with the material cost of the plastic and production coming in at 25 cents or below).

Still, the bottling industry has to start somewhere, and Cove is at least building infrastructure, materials and a process to create an alternative to plastic that could eventually see its price reduced over time. This is an achievement in itself, as many others have tried to bring biodegradable water bottles to market without much success. While Coca Cola has developed what it claims is an entirely plant-based bottle, they’ve yet to commercialize the product fully. Others, like Metabolix, shut down before they could ever find significant market traction.

In the meantime, I hope we’ll see more retailers, restaurants, and consumers embrace plastic alternatives, whether aluminum-canned or paper-boxed water. Airlines like Alaska (is there a venue where more single-use plastic is used than on flights?) have started to switch to boxed water, and I don’t see why every food service venue doesn’t as well.

New York is Banning Styrofoam Food Containers – What’s next for To-Go Packaging?

Styrofoam food packaging, made from a hard plastic called polystyrene, poses a plethora of problems. First off, it takes an extremely long time to degrade, and it accounts for 10-40 percent of all litter found in streams. The production of polystyrene also releases about fifty different chemicals byproducts into the air, water, and local communities. This is exactly why the state of New York will ban the use of single-use styrofoam food containers and packaging peanuts starting January 1st, 2022.

According to the New York Department of Environmental Conservation, the new rule applies to restaurants, caterers, food carts, food trucks, food stores, grocers, cafeterias, coffee shops, delis, colleges, schools, and more. However, there are a few exceptions to the ban, including raw meat and seafood sold with the intention of being prepared off-premises by the customer. Non-profits and places of worship that supply food to those in need may also continue to serve food packaged in styrofoam if they qualify for a certain waiver.

There are no federal bans on styrofoam packaging yet, and all current bans are on a city or county level. In addition to New York, there are 11 other cities throughout the U.S. that do not allow food or beverages to be served in styrofoam packaging, including major cities like San Francisco (CA), Portland (Oregon), and Seattle (WA).

Without styrofoam, what is next for to-go food packaging? Companies producing and developing alternatives to traditional food packaging are focused on using sustainable and biodegradable materials that release little to no chemicals when processed.

In recent years, one of the most popular alternatives to styrofoam is using plant-based fibers to create compostable food to-go containers. Many different fibers can be used for this application, including sugar cane, corn, potato, and bamboo. Packaging made from paper, especially recycled paper, is another common choice. Although these materials are compostable, some compostable packaging contains “forever chemicals” that never break down. A Hong Kong-based company called Ecoinno uses sugar cane and bamboo to craft to-go containers without the use of any of these particular chemicals or plastics.

During this past summer, delivery service Delivery Hero launched a sustainable packaging program for restaurants it serves in an attempt to cut down on single-use and toxic packaging waste. QSRs like Burger King and Taco Bell have begun trialing various alternatives to their original single-use packaging, like reusable, recyclable, and compostable packaging.

This week, a London-based company called Notpla raised €11.7 million (~$13.1 million USD) for its seaweed-based packaging that “disappears”. The alternative packaging fully degrades within 4-6 weeks without the use of any special processing. Although NotPla’s packaging is intended to be a direct replacement for plastic and not styrofoam, this still has potential for the restaurant and food space.

Despite the awareness of the negative environmental consequences of styrofoam, not many cities or states in the U.S. have enforced a ban. Hopefully, with the rise of more packaging alternatives, we will see more places adopting legislature around single-use packaging and plastics. In the meantime, if you are interested in supporting restaurants that use sustainable packaging, check out the free app Jybe.

Delivery Hero’s Sustainable Packaging Program to Provide Restaurants With Eco-Friendly To-Go Containers

Delivery Hero today launched its Sustainable Packaging Program that gives restaurants on its platform more eco-friendly options for their to-go orders. The concept is currently piloting in Austria, Chile, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, Qatar, and Singapore. Delivery Hero said in today’s announcement that it will expand the program to other markets in the near future.

The company will deploy 10 million units of “sustainable packaging” by the end of 2022. Specifically, that means providing packaging that’s either fully plant based or plastic alternatives that are free of perfluoroalkoxy-alkanes (PFAS), the manmade chemicals frequently used to make grease- and liquid-resistant packaging. 

For its eco-friendly packaging, Delivery Hero is collaborating with Eco-Products and BIO-LUTIONS on various products including boxes, compartment containers, salad bowls, soup bowls, and sauce containers. (Delivery Hero invested in BIO-LUTIONS in 2019.) These will, according to the company, be available to restaurants on the Delivery Hero platform at “affordable pricing.” 

Several efforts over the last year or so have seen restaurants and restaurant-related companies address the industry’s packaging (aka trash) problem. Major QSRs like McDonald’s and Burger King have both piloted reusable container programs, while parts of the U.S. have companies like DeliverZero, which works with restaurants to bring reusable containers to the delivery process.

Delivery Hero’s news is notable because up to now, no major delivery service has announced plans to actually take over the responsibility of finding and providing eco-friendly packaging. Normally, this task is up to the restaurants themselves. Especially given the last year, many smaller businesses do not have access to affordable options that aren’t mainstream plastics. Delivery Hero, meanwhile, operates 13 subsidiaries, in addition to its name brand, all over the world, so its potential impact could be huge. Company co-founder and CEO Niklas Östberg said in a statement today that the Sustainable Packaging Program “aspires to pave the way for the industry and deliver a more climate friendly service for customers and communities around the world.”

The program follows the company’s earlier announcement of becoming carbon neutral by the end of 2021. 

If you want to learn more about Delivery Hero and other happenings in the restaurant world, join The Spoon on August 17 for a virtual Restaurant Tech Summit. The day-long event will discuss the digitization of the restaurant industry and what that means for its players. Grab a ticket here, and come ready to ask some questions.

Starbucks Reinstates Its Reusable Cup Program With a Low-Tech Twist

Starbucks will reinstate its reusable cup program in the U.S. on June 22, more than a year after suspending the program because of COVID-19-related safety concerns. 

The Seattle coffee giant halted its longtime reusable cup program in March of 2020. Since then, the chain has only served up beverages in its own to-go cups. However, as Starbucks pointed out in a letter this week, the company has a goal to reduce single-use cup waste by 50 percent by 2030 as part of a larger, multi-decade goal of becoming a resource positive company. 

The newly reinstated cup program will still offer customers that bring their own cups to Starbucks stores a $.10 discount. The company has also introduced a low-tech but seemingly effective way to get these reusables from the customers hands to the barista’s and back again: keep the cup in a ceramic mug while the barista makes the drink.

For now, the reusable program is only available to in-store customers, though Starbucks said it is “testing safe options” for reusable cups in the drive-thru lane. “For here ware” — ceramic mugs and plates — will once again be available for in-store customers, too.

Elsewhere, Starbucks is in the midst of a pilot test for its “Borrow a Cup” program, where customers can get their beverages in a reusable cup for a $1 deposit. For the program, Starbucks has partnered with Ridwell, a company that collects hard-to-recycle items, to offer a home-pickup service.

Worldwide, we throw out roughly 264 billion paper cups per year. Most of these are difficult to recycle because of their plastic inner linings. When it launched the Borrow a Cup program, Starbucks itself noted that a major hurdle to curbing this problem is convenience. “The challenge is how to make choosing reusables as convenient as you expect from Starbucks – no extra steps – especially with 80% of Starbucks beverages being enjoyed on the go,” the company said.

Other restaurant chains, including McDonald’s, Burger King and Just Salad, will grapple with a similar challenge as they further develop their own reusables programs. In all likelihood, the most effective strategy to cutting down cup waste (and packaging waste in general) will be a combination of bring-your-own-cup programs, partnerships with circular-packaging services, and regulatory requirements.

Shake Shack Is Trialing Biodegradable Cutlery and Straws

Shake Shack announced this week it is testing the use of biodegradable straws and cutlery at six of its 310 locations, according to Nation’s Restaurant News. Those items are now available at units in West Hollywood and Long Beach in California, Madison Square Park and West Village in NYC, and in Miami, Florida.

Manufactured by a California-based company called Restore Foodware, the utensils and straws are made from polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB), also known as AirCarbon. According to Restore parent company Newlight Technologies, PHB is in “almost all known life on Earth, from microorganisms and trees to the human body.” Restore gets its PHB from ocean microorganisms, cultivates it in tanks, then turns it into pellets that can be melted down and shaped into spoons, knives, and other utensils, just like plastic. 

Unlike plastic, PHB is biodegradable. Speaking to NRN, Newlight CEO Mark Herrema said the substance breaks down “just like leaves and stems do.”

Newlight launched its first commercial-scale production system for AirCarbon in 2019, and launched products in 2020. At the moment, it is making cutlery and straws under the Restore brand. These items are certified carbon negative by Carbon Trust and SCS Global.

At the moment, Shake Shack does not have a timeline on whether it plans to expand its pilot with Restore’s items to other locations. However, the mere fact that the chain is exploring this option is encouraging for the rest of the industry. The shift towards pickup and delivery orders has amplified the problem of packaging waste for restaurants. At the moment, however, smaller businesses are busy trying to keep their doors open and can’t be expected to champion packaging innovation at the same time.

Bigger brands are in a better position to do so (financially speaking), and recent efforts from the likes of McDonald’s, Burger King, Shake Shack, and others suggest the restaurant biz is now taking its packaging problem seriously. 

The Restaurant Trash Problem Is Actually a Major Opportunity

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Here’s a small silver lining alert. The restaurant industry’s urgent shift to off-premises meal formats has created an urgent need to combat packaging waste. And people are finally starting to do something about it.

Let’s not sugar-coat the issue too much. Packaging waste is a major problem, one to which restaurants contribute greatly. Prior to the pandemic, some cities were taking steps to reduce or ban single-use plastics, and materials like polystyrene (aka Styrofoam) were out of vogue. All that changed when the pandemic forced the entire restaurant industry to rely on to-go orders for sales and regulations and company policies began banning the use of reusable containers for health and safety reasons.

In fairness to many restaurants, alternative forms of packaging (compostable, reusable, etc.) are expensive, and can even require operational changes for the staff. It should not be expected that these businesses suddenly come up with strategies for more eco-friendly packaging, particularly not at a time when many still struggle to keep the lights on and many more have shut down forever.

But those that can explore alternative packing options should, and of late we have seen some encouraging developments in this direction:

  • Last week, Just Salad announced its famed reusable bowl program would be available for digital orders. The company also highlighted, in its latest sustainability report, its Zero Waste delivery program, which integrates reusable packaging into the delivery order process.
  • Sweetgreen last week announced its plans to go carbon neutral by 2027. Details were pretty high-level, but the company already uses compostable packaging for its to-go orders, so it would not be surprising to see some additional developments in this area in the future. 
  • Just Salad was also in the news last month for the launch of its new meal kit service that’s free of both extraneous portion sizes and plastic packaging.
  • At the end of 2020, Burger King announced a partnership with circular packaging service Loop to pilot reusable food and beverage containers this year.
  • Ditto for McDonald’s, which struck a similar deal with Loop in the second half of 2020. The mega-chain has other circular solutions in place, too, like its Recup system in Germany.
  • There are plenty of other notable efforts being made here, from individual restaurants, like Zuni in California, to companies like NYC-based DeliverZero, which partners with restaurants to fulfill delivery meals with reusable containers. Additionally, Dishcraft Robotics lends some automation to the process of collecting and cleaning reusables at restaurants.

The bigger point here is that while we have a massive packaging problem on our hands right now, we also have a massive opportunity to change that and introduce new innovations in the process. Those innovations could simultaneously curb our single-use plastics problem while also addressing things like food quality, tamper-resistant packaging, and other elements that have surfaced over the last year. The public’s appetite for to-go orders is not going away. That means the opportunity to change our relationship to packaging is around for the long-haul, too.

Innovation won’t come as a one-takeout-box-to-rule-them-all format. Instead, what we’re more likely to see is collaboration among restaurants, material scientists, package designers, and many others. Nor will the issue be solved next week. Weaning an entire industry off single-use plastics will be a complex, costly undertaking that will probably meet a lot of resistance and a lot of failures.

None of that is a reason to ignore the packaging problem and opportunity. Based on developments from the above companies, many are already willing to start changing the system for everyone.

Restaurant Tech ‘Round the Web

White Castle’s recent ghost kitchen effort in Orlando generated so much demand the location had to close will not reopen until spring, when the chain finds a location better suited to meet that demand.

Food delivery search engine MealMe has closed a $900,000 pre-seed round led by Palm Drive Capital. Slow Ventures and CP Ventures also participated in the round.

For the second year in a row, the National Restaurant Association’s annual conference is cancelled due to COVID-19. Instead, the Association will host a series of virtual events throughout the rest of 2021.

Just Salad’s Reusable Bowls Are Going Off-Premises, Too

New York-based restaurant chain Just Salad plans to pilot its popular reusable bowl program for digital orders in the near future. The announcement comes as part of the fast-casual chain’s annual sustainability report, which was just released, and tracks company progress on making its business more eco-friendly.

If you’ve ever set foot inside a Just Salad, you’ll know the company’s line of colorful bowls made from heavy plastic resin that can be washed and reused on a regular basis. Just Salad started its reusable bowl program back in 2006 with the aim to cut down on single-use packaging for to-go orders. Customers could purchase a reusable bowl (mine cost $1 when I bought it in 2012), take it home, wash it, and bring it back for a refill each time they bought a meal from the restaurant.

In its most recent sustainability report, Just Salad said that sales of its reusable bowls grew more than 100 percent year-over-year in 2019 — then were abruptly halted by the COVID-19 pandemic. In New York City and elsewhere, reusable containers were banned from restaurants in an effort to lessen the spread of the coronavirus. Simultaneously, homebound customers switched to digital ordering and delivery formats, neither of which lend themselves to reusable packaging.

Now, in 2021, Just Salad said it plans to expand its reusable bowl program to serve off-premises channels like delivery. Under the new phase of the program, customers can order digitally for delivery and pickup. Food arrives in a Just Salad reusable bowl, which can be returned to any Just Salad location for cleaning and sanitizing afterwards. The phase is currently in beta and only available at one location, at the chain’s 3rd Avenue spot in Manhattan.

Just Salad told Nation’s Restaurant News this week that without any extra marketing done, roughly 30 percent of customers have already used the program since it launched earlier this year. 

The expanded reusable program is one item on a growing list of initiatives Just Salad has around sustainability — an area the company was championing long before the pandemic. Another notable item this week’s report mentions is Zero Waste delivery pilot. In partnership with NYC-based company DeliverZero, the Just Salad location in Park Slope, Brooklyn offers delivery items in reusable containers. Customers have six weeks to return the containers to either a delivery person or at a Just Salad location. Multiple other NYC restaurants work with DeliverZero, many of them local businesses. 

Hopefully that number grows, and quickly. If delivery and off-premises restaurant formats aren’t going away, nor is the mounting packaging waste problem, not if we don’t do anything to stop it. Restaurants account for 78 percent of all disposable packaging, much of it plastic. And plastic production has increased 200-fold since 1950, growing at a rate of 4 percent per year since 2000, with most plastic winding up in the landfill or ocean. Needless to say, our appetites for off-premises aren’t helping this problem.

In response, circular-economy-style delivery is slowly but surely making its way into the restaurant industry. Reusables are by no means the norm yet. However, major chains like Burger King and McDonald’s have various tests underway, which is encouraging for the industry as a whole.

Just Salad, meanwhile, has a number of other sustainability initiatives on the table, including its meal kit program aimed at combating both packaging food waste and a partnership with food “rescue” company Too Good to Go.

Just Salad Debuts Meal Kit Brand to Fight Food Waste, Plastic Packaging

Fast-casual chain Just Salad has launched a meal kit brand it is calling the “next generation of meal kits.” Dubbed Housemade, the line is available now exclusively via Grubhub, according to a blog post from Just Salad.

The standout feature of the new meal kit line (which launched very, very quietly this month), is its purportedly waste-free packaging. Anyone who has ever ordered a traditional meal kit knows that you’re typically left with a mound of plastic, cardboard, and dry ice after the food is prepped.

In contrast, Just Salad says the Housemade line uses “zero plastic packaging.” Instead, meals arrive in curbside recyclable or compostable packaging, and labels on the packages are water soluble. Recipe cards contain disposal instructions for the packaging.

In terms of what actually arrives in a kit, it’s a bit of a cross between a prepared meal delivery and a more traditional kit. For example, the Housemade Mediterranean Chicken Salad comes with uncooked chicken, rice, vegetables, and other ingredients. Items are pre-portioned out, so that the customer just has to put them into single pan and cook for 15 minutes. Since Just Salad won’t be using dry ice or other cold storage materials for its packages, meals are meant to be delivered within an hour. There is no subscription to purchase the Housemade kits, which start at $10.49 for a single serving. Users can simply head over to Just Salad’s page on the Grubhub app or website.

Meal kits as a category has long been championed as a potential avenue for fighting food waste because ingredients are pre-portioned and users get exactly what they need for each meal. The tradeoff for that convenience up to now has been excess amounts of packaging waste, which rather nullifies any other sustainable aspects of the meal kit.

Just Salad said in its blog post that its Housemade kits have “91 percent less packaging by weight than the average meal kit.” Again, the reason that is possible is because kits are have few ingredients, are available in single-serving sizes, and are meant to be delivered within an hour. Traditional meal kits, on the other hand, serve entire families, usually require a subscription, and are shipped across the country. All of those factors require more protective packaging (insulating, shipping, etc.) for any given order. Just Salad’s tactic of using its own locations to fulfill orders and delivering those orders within an hour automatically removes some of the packaging problem from the process.

In its blog post, Just Salad said meal kits “have a crucial redeeming feature,” which is fighting food waste, but that the industry must “rethink the meal kit concept” in order to effectively cut down on packaging waste.

TemperPack Raises $31M for Its Styrofoam-Free Thermal Packaging

Sustainable packaging company TemperPack has raised a $31 million Series C round, according to AgFunder News. The round was led by Wheatsheaf Group with participation from existing investors, and brings TemperPack’s total funding to roughly $78 million.

TemperPack’s main mission is to change the packaging industry by reducing our reliance on non-sustainable materials used to ship foods, medications, and other perishable items. To do that, the Richmond, VA-based company uses a patented material it calls ClimaCell, which it makes from “renewable plant-based components and paper.” The material acts as an insulating element in packaging materials. In essence, it does the job of Styrofoam but is made from plants and 100 percent curbside recyclable.

In the food world, TemperPack already works with meal kit company HelloFresh, as well as surplus produce companies Misfits Market and Imperfect Foods. 

The Series C round comes at a time when the world is sorely in need of more sustainable packaging options for food items. Thanks to the pandemic, record numbers of consumers are shopping online for groceries, restaurants have moved to mostly off-premises formats, and even the once-beleaguered meal kit category is making a comeback. All of those food options for consumers mean a lot more potential for packaging waste if more earth-friendly, easily recyclable alternatives aren’t found. 

TemperPack and planned to raise new funds closer to the end of 2020, but told Crunchbase that increased demand for its product allowed the company to do that sooner. That’s at least some encouragement if you’re worried about the amount of packaging piling up in landfills thanks to the pandemic. 

The company says it will use the new funds to buy more equipment to increase the manufacturing of its ClimaCell product. There is also a possible expansion to Europe. Currently, it operates facilities in Richmond and Las Vegas, NV.

Daily Harvest Switches to Home Compostable Containers

Daily Harvest makes frozen containers of pre-prepped food that are supposed to be better for your health than most frozen meals. But are they better for the planet, too?

The company has taken at least one step towards sustainability. Starting in April, Daily Harvest will roll out its new Re:generation line of containers which are 100 percent home compostable and made from plant-based renewable fibers. They’re also adjusting its portion size; the savory Harvest Bowls + Soups will be 1.5 times larger, and the Oats + Chia Bowls will be .75 times their current size.

Daily Harvest is also working more upstream to make the entire production process — from manufacturing to shipping — more sustainable. According to a release from the company emailed to The Spoon, Daily Harvest is in the midst of “working to eliminate all single use plastic and non-recyclable materials through our supply chain.” Where exactly they are on that process is unclear.

I tried out Daily Harvest’s service last year and really enjoyed the taste, health, and convenience of the frozen meals. I was happy to learn at the time that the cardboard delivery box in which the meals com is recyclable, as are the meal cups themselves. The liner holding the dry ice included in the shipment is supposedly also biodegradable and made of recycled denim.

Making the cups not just recyclable but home compostable is an encouraging step to cut waste in the very wasteful home meal delivery space — and one that I hope to see other companies following. Some already are. UK supermarket chain Waitrose has debuted fully compostable packaging for prepared meals. Pizza tech company Zume also pivoted into compostable packaging last year, though it’s currently dealing with lack of funding and major layoffs.

Other companies, like NadaMoo, are learning just how complex making home-recyclable containers actually is, especially for leak-prone products like ice cream.

One major question I had when learning this news was whether or not Daily Harvest’s new containers will contain PFAS, or chemicals that do not ever biodegrade. Last week Sweetgreen began rolling out new to-go meal bowls that were compostable and free of PFAS (their old containers were compostable but did have PFAS). As of today, Chipotle has pledged to remove PFAS from its own bowls by the end of 2020.

I’ve reached out to Daily Harvest to find out if its new packaging does, in fact, contain PFAs and will update this post when I hear back. Until then, it’s still encouraging to see a company so synonymous with frozen food delivery taking steps to reduce its packaging footprint. Here’s hoping Daily Harvest’s actions will encourage other delivery-only meal companies to follow suit.

Sweetgreen Rolls Out Truly Compostable Bowls — Will Other Chains Follow Suit?

If you’ve grabbed lunch at a Sweetgreen before, you likely felt pretty virtuous as you tossed your takeout container, knowing that it’s “100 percent compostable.”

But the truth about those takeaway bowls is a lot less pleasant. According to The Counter (formerly The New Food Economy), all molded fiber bowls contain PFAS; a nasty class of chemicals that do not naturally biodegrade. That means that the compostable food containers you’ve been throwing out are not, in fact, compostable. In fact, they contain hazardous, unhealthy components that never break down.

However, Sweetgreen just took a big step to get rid of PFAS and make their to-go containers truly compostable. The fast-casual chain partnered with Footprint, a company fighting single-use plastic packaging, to develop a new line of biodegradable bowls that are completely devoid of PFAS (h/t FastCompany). Sweetgreen launched the bowls first in San Francisco earlier this year, since new legislation requires that as of January 1, 2020, all single-use food service ware (containers, cups, etc) in SF must be PFAS-free.

The containers are made of fibers from bagasse, an agricultural waste product, which is blended, heated, and covered with a natural coating so it won’t leak. The lids for Sweetgreen’s to-go containers are currently plastic, but the company plans to start selling lids made of the same compostable material soon. Sweetgreen has plans to roll out the compostable bowls at all of its stores nationwide in 2020.

Sweetgreen is one of several restaurant chains with high numbers of to-go orders that is increasing its sustainability efforts. Its competitor, Just Salad, recently announced plans to send zero waste to landfills by 2022. Coffee chain Blue Bottle aims to divert at least 90 percent of its waste from landfills by the end of this year.

On the fast food side, Taco Bell aims to implement PFAS-free sustainable consumer-facing packaging by 2025. Starbucks will switch to reusable packaging by 2030 in a bid to cut its landfill waste by half. And McDonald’s, Chick-fil-A, Subway, and Burger King have all made their own pledges to reduce single-use and plastic.

In a time when worry over COVID-19 could be making restaurants more hesitant to accept consumer’s reusable containers — Starbucks, for example, has stopped letting customers use their own drinking vessels — better to-go packaging is more needed than ever before. But implementing truly recyclable or compostable packaging is much easier said than done, even as more cities mandate PFAS-free to-go containers.

With its new biodegradable bowls, Sweetgreen shows that it’s taking sustainability seriously. The move should put some pressure on fast-casual competitors like Chipotle, Panera, Chopt, and more, to follow suit and step up their to-go container game.

Chicago Considers a Ban on Foam Takeout Boxes for Restaurants

Chicago introduced an ordinance this week that would ban restaurants from using polystyrene (aka foam) to-go containers and also limit the amount of disposable plastics they use.

The “Plastic-Free Water” ordinance, introduced by Alderman (32nd) Scott Waguespack and Ald. Susan Sadlowski Garza (10th), calls for a total ban of polystyrene packaging that would go into effect on January 1, 2021. Restaurants would have to substitute with reusable dishes for dine-in orders and recyclable or compostable ones for takeout and delivery orders.

The ordinance also calls for a limit — though not a total ban — on single-use plastics like to-go cutlery. Restaurants would give these items out if requested or have them available at self-service stations, rather than packaging them with each order by default. Additionally, customers would be able to bring their own reusable cups.

Restaurants that do not have the space to wash dishes and can’t contract out that work (think food trucks or mall kiosks) would be able to request a full or partial waiver.

To help restaurants understand the kinds of alternative packaging available to them, the city of Chicago would provide a list of businesses that sell recyclable and compostable materials, and would also give restaurant printable signs to put up directing customers where to properly dispose of their items (e.g., in the compost bin versus the one recycling).

Providing restaurants with a list of available alternatives to polystyrene is an important step in the industry, as one of the issues businesses face when making the switch to sustainable to-go packaging is even knowing what else is out there. Whether these alternatives will actually be realistically affordable, especially for smaller, independent restaurants, remains in question. To that end, the Illinois Restaurant Association released a statement on Wednesday that more or less supports these efforts but also points out that the ordinance could drive costs for restaurant owners higher.

Chicago is just the latest city to consider a ban on single-use packaging in the restaurant industry, following similar moves by New York City, Los Angeles, San Diego, and others.