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single-use plastics

Kroger Launches a Recycling Program in Partnership With TerraCycle

Grocery retailer Kroger announced today the launch of its Kroger Our Brands Recycling Program, an expansion of an earlier program developed in partnership with TerraCycle. The program aims to make it easier for consumers to recycle flexible plastic packaging. 

Flexible plastic packaging includes things like snack pouches, potato chip bags, packets of cheese, and frozen food pouches, among other items. While this particular type of packaging keeps food fresh, it’s also very difficult to recycle and not eligible for curbside pickup in most parts of the U.S.

TerraCycle, meanwhile, specializes in hard-to-recycle items such as flexible plastics. The company has several different recycling programs in operation, and also runs Loop, which offers common CPGs in reusable containers.

The Kroger/TerraCycle program means customers can sign up for free to ship them to TerraCycle using a prepaid shipping label. Users earn points for every pound of packaging sent. Points can be redeemed as donations to participating charitable organizations.

Having to take the extra steps to separate flexible plastics and actually put them in the mail might deter some customers. However, Kroger said in today’s press release that it saw “great success” with an earlier version of the program, which recycled flexible packaging from the company’s Simple Truth brand. The new program is available to schools, offices, and other organizations, in addition to individual consumers and households. 

All packaging collected through the program will be melted into hard plastic and used to make new products. 

For now, only the following Kroger brands are eligible to be recycled via the program: Private Selection, Kroger Brand, Comforts, Luvsome, and Abound. 

 

Restaurants’ Breakup With Single-Use Plastics Has Begun

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From monstrous portions to excess packaging, restaurants have a super-sized waste problem on their hands right now, and single-use plastics are a major contributor to the issue.

But as I wrote a few newsletters ago, the most effective way to combat this is not necessarily by expecting every restaurant out there to develop its own sustainability strategy. Many restaurants are right now just trying to survive the fallout from the last year. Instead, the fight against food waste, the fight against plastic waste has to include businesses, innovators, activists, and lawmakers alike.

We took a step in that direction this week when fast-casual chain Just Salad released a sign-on letter for restaurants and food/bev businesses to show their support for the Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act (BFFPPA) 2021, recently introduced legislation aimed to curbing our reliance on single-use plastics. 

BFFPPA 2021, which builds on an earlier version of the bill, calls for reduction of plastic production at the source, greater focus on reusable packaging and containers, and more protections for communities of color, low-income communities, and indigenous communities, which are disproportionately impacted by plastic pollution.

“The plastic pollution problem gets worse with each passing day,” Judith Enck, a former EPA Administrator and the President of Beyond Plastics, said in an email to The Spoon. “The Break Free From Plastic Pollution Act is the most comprehensive and sweeping Congressional bill that addresses this problem.”

BFFPPA 2021 addresses all plastics. To drive the point home for restaurants, Just Salad introduced its own sign-on letter, which is a call-to-action for restaurants of all sizes to support the BFFPPA 2021.

Because of costs, operational challenges, and differing regulations from state to state, getting rid of single-use plastic is an expensive, time-consuming prospect for many restaurants. As a result, the restaurant biz generates about 78 percent of all disposable packaging. Case in point: plastic cutlery. The United States uses more than 36 billion disposable utensils per year, which is enough to wrap the globe 139 times. Don’t please get me started on plastic-lined disposable cups.

Just Salad’s letter outlines how BFFPPA 2021 could help. To name just a few benefits listed in the letter: 

  • More and better reusable programs, such as those currently in operation from Loop, DeliverZero, and, of course, Just Salad
  • Fewer single-use plastics, which are a major problem in the restaurant industry because of to-go boxes, bags, and cutlery
  • More standardized recycling and composting across states

“The BFFPPA would accelerate our respective companies’ efforts to reduce the waste and carbon footprint of our industry and create dining experiences that are healthy for people and planet. Supported by this legislation, our sustainability efforts would have a much larger impact,” the letter says.

Enck, in her email to The Spoon, expressed equal enthusiasm for the bill’s potential impact on restaurants: “Restaurants don’t want to contribute to the plastic pollution problem. When it is adopted into a law, this bill will eliminate some of the worst plastic products and boost alternatives to plastics.”

Just Salad is in the process of collecting public support for BFFPPA 2021. Restaurants, foodservice organizations, and food and beverage companies can show theirs by signing the letter. 

Speaking to The Spoon recently, Just Salad’s Chief Sustainability Officer Sandra Noonan pointed out that our efforts will “remain fragmented” until a national policy puts regulations around things like single-use plastic cutlery and does more to enable reusable containers, the circular economy, and waste management infrastructure. BFFPPA 2021 seeks to end that fragmentation, and with it, our longstanding reliance on the concept of single-use plastic.

More Headlines

Slice, a restaurant tech company that recently launched a POS system for pizzerias, announced it is also launching a loyalty program for pizza-loving restaurant customers. Slice Rewards will give users pizza points for every pie they order at a participating restaurant. 

Restaurant reservations platform Opentable has opened a brick-and-mortar restaurant it says will serve as a kind of innovation testing ground for the company’s technology. Dubbed Layla, the restaurant is now open for business at Kayak Miami Beach.

Churchill Downs Racetrack has released its official menus for 147th Kentucky Derby. This year, it includes online components, including a virtual cooking class with Churchill Downs Executive Chef David Danielson. 

Time to Recirculate the To-Go Cup Debate

Since we now live in a world where the to-go order is the main attraction at restaurants, we need to start treating the issue of excess single-use packaging with a whole lot more urgency.

Clearly I’m not the only one to have that thought, as two major QSR chains made sustainability announcements of their own this week. Both are aimed at reducing the amount of plastic that winds up in landfills and the ocean — no small feat considering the billions of single-use cups, straws, and containers we throw out each year, thanks in no small part to the convenience-driven delivery and to-go craze. 

On Thursday, Starbucks, sent out an update saying its “strawless lids” are now “the standard for iced beverages” at stores in the U.S. and Canada. The lids use roughly 9 percent less plastic than the normal lid-and-straw combo. The rollout of these lids applies to company-owned and licensed Starbucks stores, and is expected to be completed by the end of the month. Straws will still be available upon request. 

It’s an important milestone, especially considering Starbucks is arguably responsible for the populace’s current fixation with fancy drinks in plastic or plastic-coated cups. But it doesn’t actually remove single-use plastics from equation.

The latest initiative from McDonald’s does. This week, the company announced a partnership with zero-waste platform Loop to create a reusable cup program at McDonald’s locations in the UK. Users can opt for a reusable cup, for which they leave a small deposit that’s retrieved when they return the cup. Loop collects the empties, washes and sanitizes them, and puts them back into circulation. The concept is reminiscent of Dishcraft Robotics’ “dishes-as-a-service” model, which recently added reusable takeout containers to the items it collects, washes, and returns to the foodservice loop.

The obvious drawback here is that putting down a deposit at McDonald’s and then taking the time to return the cup is inconvenient. Inconvenience doesn’t sell with many consumers these days (which is another separate issue itself). 

A reusable cup system is, however, a bolder move than simply reducing plastic, and bold moves are what we need right now to get excessive packaging out of the foodservice world. That the McDonald’s pilot is coming from a multi-billion corporation with a $4 billion digital business is encouraging. But to become widespread, the entire restaurant industry is going to have to pitch in, from the major chains and supply companies to delivery services, mom-and-pop stores, and consumers themselves.

That’s no small ask at a time when the restaurant industry is utterly crippled from the pandemic and small chains and independent restaurants are permanently shuttering at an alarming pace. But with off-premises orders being the future of restaurants for the foreseeable future, no one can afford to shelve the glaring issue of single-use packaging for much longer, not without risking further environmental consequences.

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Zomato Raises $100M, Plans IPO

Zomato, one of India’s largest food delivery services, announced this week it has raised $100 million from Tiger Global and is preparing for an IPO in 2021.

The news is just another layer of development to what’s been a very busy year for Zomato. The company bought Uber Eats’ India business in March, raised a $5 million Series J round in April, and unveiled a grocery delivery service in the same month. It had to cut 13 percent of its workforce in May (thanks, pandemic), but things are clearly looking up for the service, as it raised $62 million from Temasek and just days ago said in a blog post that “recovery trends are strong.”

A prospective IPO is another sign of that recovery. In a letter to employees reviewed by TechCrunch, Zomato co-founder and CEO Deepinder Goyal set “sometime in the first half of next year” as a timeline for said IPO. At the moment the company has “no immediate plans” on how it will spend the investment from Tiger Global, if it spends it at all. Goyal called the cash a “war-chest” for future M&A and for fighting price wars from competition.

Given that Zomato competes fiercely with Swiggy for the Indian food delivery market, and given the consolidation the entire third-party delivery industry is undergoing, having a war chest doesn’t seem like a bad move right now.

Restaurant Tech ‘Round the Web

Fast-casual chain Sweetgreen this week launched Collections, a new digital-only menu available through the restaurant’s app and website. According to a press release sent to The Spoon, menu items are curated according to specific themes and dietary preferences/restrictions, and will make recommendations that are unique to each individual customer.

Order-ahead platform Allset has teamed up with digital ordering platform Olo to streamline the pickup order process for participating restaurants. Olo’s system lets restaurants manage menus, pricing, and order fulfillment across multiple third-party platforms, thus creating fewer manual workflows for restaurant staff.

Starting Sept. 30, NYC restaurants will be allowed to operate indoor dining rooms at 25 percent capacity. The announcement, made by Gov. Andrew Cuomo this week, comes just as the city gears up for the colder days ahead that will limit outdoor seating for most businesses.

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.

Is Grocery Shopping’s Future Bringing Your Own Containers? Pete and Gerry’s Is Finding Out.

A trip to the grocery store creates a trail of packaging, much of which is plastic, that is mostly destined for a dump, sometimes a recycling center, and sadly, too often, the ocean.

Some supermarket chains are trying to do their part to reduce waste, with the latest being Giant Eagle, which has pledged to phase out single-use plastics by 2025. However, moves like these, while noble, don’t account for the waste produced by the packaged products on store shelves, from cans of beans, pints of ice cream or cartons of eggs. That latter one is getting some attention now from Pete and Gerry’s, the organic egg company.

The company announced in a press release yesterday that it has been trialing a reusable egg carton at co-op food stores in New Hampshire and Vermont. The cartons are made of recycled, durable, BPA-free plastic that can be washed at home and reused repeatedly, according to the release. Once a consumer buys the carton for $2.99, they can fill it up from the Pete and Gerry’s display of loose eggs, which are discounted from a standard dozen. More than 500 of the cartons have been sold, Fast Company reports.

Pete and Gerry’s said that an average American who eats 279 eggs per year would save more than 1,800 cartons from entering the recycling and waste stream by using the reusable carton. On a larger scale, if every one of the 327 million American did so, more than 594 billion cartons would be out of circulation. Pete and Gerry’s said that it’s looking to bring the program to more stores.

One aspect of a reusable anything is that customers must bring it with them whenever they go shopping. At their core, these items inconvenience the customer. And introducing them requires companies to be brave enough to add some friction between them and a transaction. 

One company doing so is Blue Bottle Coffee, which announced last week that “by the end of 2020, all of our US cafes will be zero waste.” The company means it: it asks customers to bring their own reusable cups, or will charge them a deposit to use one of the cafe’s, and will sell whole bean coffee in bulk to customers with their own containers rather single-use bags.

Eventually, our standard should require the use of reusable containers. The tactic taken by many food companies is to switch to materials that are more easily recycled. Clearly, this won’t be good enough. Recycling has proven to be ineffective while the world continues to drown in plastic.

The future of food shopping should be a little more difficult for everyone, especially for those who can afford it, for the sake of the planet. “Zero-waste stores” are already attempting this, demanding that their customers bring their own containers. Larger grocery chains and consumer packaged goods companies need to step up and expand efforts such as the delivery service Loop, which utilizes reusable containers.

The planet has suffered because of our thirst for convenience. It’s time for more companies to step up and demand customers give up some of that convenience.

Blue Bottle Coffee Plans to Make Its U.S. Stores Zero Waste in 2020

“We are proud to announce an experiment that may not work, that may cost us money, and that may make your life a little more complicated.”

So wrote Blue Bottle Coffee CEO Bryan Meehan late last week in a blog post introducing his company’s latest initiative: to turn Blue Bottle’s U.S. locations into zero-waste cafes by the end of 2020.

In the blog post, published at the tail end of last week, Meehan wrote that each Blue Bottle store goes through about 15,000 disposable cups per month in the U.S., which adds up to roughly 12 million cups per year. While the company did switch from bioplastic cups and straws to paper versions back in 2015, Meehan says the move is “still not enough.” 

From Meehan’s blog post:

“By the end of 2020, all of our US cafes will be zero waste, which according to Zero Waste International Alliance, means at least 90 percent of our waste is diverted from landfill. To help us go even further, we will test our first zero-single-use-cup program in the San Francisco Bay Area.“

Blue Bottle will pilot this initiative by providing reusable cups users can get with “a modest deposit” and then return to the cafe for cleaning. Customers can also bring in their own reusable cups. Meanwhile, stores will sell whole bean coffee in bulk (meaning customers would bring their own containers) rather than single-use bags, and grab-and-go items will be packaged in reusable containers. 

The move is in keeping with the sustainability goals of Nestlé, who owns a 68 percent stake in Blue Bottle. The Swiss company recently pledged to become carbon neutral by 2025 and make its packaging reusable and recyclable by the same time. 

But as Meehan’s post points out, recycling is far from effective when it comes to combatting the single-use plastic problem. Currently, less than 10 percent of all plastic sold in the U.S. actually gets recycled. Instead, millions of tons wind up in landfills and the ocean. That phrase “reduce, reuse, recycle” dates back to the 1970s, but it’s only recently that the first two words have seen a resurgence. By resurgence I mean they are actually getting mentioned once in a while when it comes to sustainability discussions. Getting consumers to use fewer single-use plastics for their day-to-day items — not just recycle them after the fact — could (theoretically) help shift some behaviors around what, when, and how we consume things.

Or it could just piss everyone off and send them running to Starbucks. There’s no guarantee customers be willing to pay that “modest deposit” in order to drink Blue Bottle’s coffee, or that ditching all single-use containers for food and beverages is economically feasible over the long term.

For his part, Meehan is aware of how tall an order Blue Bottle’s zero-waste initiative actually is:

“A commitment to reuse will wreak havoc on every aspect of our pilot cafe’s operations. We expect to lose some business. We might fail. We know some of our guests won’t like it—and we’re prepared for that. But the time has come to step up and do difficult things.”

Inventor Says He Created a Process to Strengthen Banana Leaves for Use as a Plastic Alternative

From single-serve utensils to bags, the world is drowning in plastic, and recycling won’t save us. That’s why environmentally friendly alternatives are desperately needed to prevent more damage to the planet.

One inventive solution, courtesy of 20-year-old Indian inventor Tenith Adithyaa, is what he calls banana leaf technology, a process that he says costs 1 cent each use and strengthens the cell walls and organs of anything made of plants (banana leaves are mostly used because of their availability around the world, he said), stopping their aging for about three years.

Once strengthened, these organic materials can be transformed into cups, plates, cones, envelopes and boxes, which after use can be broken down naturally in 28 days, as opposed to centuries with plastics. Leaves preserved with this technology can resist extreme temperatures and hold more weight, according to Adithyaa.

“Since banana leaf technology is applicable to numerous materials and applications, the usage of these products are countless,” Adithyaa wrote to The Spoon in an email. “We envision a cost-effective biodegradable choice must be available to all human beings regardless of their geographical and economical boundaries.”

Adithyaa didn’t share any details of how the technology works, other than that it’s cellular enhancement and the process doesn’t require the use of chemicals. We currently don’t know whether the technology will work on a large scale.

(Courtesy Tenith Adithyaa)

Adithyaa said he plans to license the technology to companies around the world and currently is in the process of working with a few global enterprises. Partnering with companies allows manufacturing to happen at a local level. For any countries where banana leaves aren’t available, he said other leaves can be used.

It’s unknown how items made of banana leaves will hold up, but Adithyaa isn’t the only working on more natural alternatives to plastics. For example, there’s TIPA, which says its materials break down in 180 days, Zume, the pizza truck company that recently purchased a compostable packaging maker, and Planeteer, creators of an edible spoon (which won the top prize at our Smart Kitchen Summit Future Food competition this week!).

Hopefully, these alternatives will soon replace our dangerous use of plastics and buy the world some time to stave off further ecological disaster.

Burger King to Stop Giving Out Plastic Toys in U.K. Kids Meals

Many children are often more excited — at least initially — about the cheap toy in a fast food kids meal than the actual food. But those little hunks of plastic will now be a thing of the past at U.K. Burger Kings, CNN reports.

Responding to a Change.org petition from British sisters Ella and Caitlin McEwan that received more than 500,000 signatures, the company said it will stop giving out the toys, saving the planet from 320 tons of single-use plastic each year. Earlier this year, the European Union voted to ban single-use plastics by 2021, which may affect the U.K. depending on the outcome of Brexit.

It will be a while until this initiative comes to the U.S. — Burger King said it plans to get rid of non-biodegradable plastic toys in other markets by 2025.

The burger company, which recently rolled out a plant-based Whopper made with Impossible Foods across the U.S., will also place “plastic toy amnesty bins” in U.K. stores for customers to bring their old toys, whether they came from Burger King or not. Burger King has partnered with Pentatonic, a circular economy company, to melt down the toys to make useful items such as play areas and trays.

McDonald’s has also announced a sustainability initiative around plastics toys. The food giant  will launch a trial program at U.K. locations where customers can choose a piece of fruit, and eventually a book, instead of a toy. The company hopes to reduce its use of about 1,000 tons of plastic in Britain per year.

While scraping plastic toys is a win for sustainability, fast food restaurants have a long way to go on the sustainability front. After all, they still use plenty of single-use tableware, straws and cups. McDonald’s has pledged to reduce its waste by 2025, while Burger King seems to just be getting started.

Yelp Has a New Initiative to Help Reduce Plastic Waste in Restaurants

Yelp gave a nod to Earth Day this morning by launching a new initiative that rates restaurants’ eco-friendliness factor.

With Yelp’s Green Practices initiative, Yelp reviewers can answer questions around a restaurant’s takeout packaging — whether the business offers compostable containers, uses plastic bags, or has discounts for things like bringing your own reusable beverage mug. The interface to do so looks and functions much like any other Yelp rating tool:

According to a blog post by Yelp product manager Jason Purdy, Yelp will use the information from the surveys “to better understand restaurant behaviors across the country and inform how we surface information about restaurant sustainability for consumers.”

Single-use plastics are just the start. Purdy noted in the same blog post that Yelp is working with a number of different partners to gather and present information about multiple sustainability issues, including the State of California Air Resource Board, the City of Los Angeles Green Business Program, and Clean Water Action’s ReThink Disposable program.

Purdy’s post also said Yelp will eliminate single-use plastic cups, plates, and utensils from all U.S. offices by the end of 2019.

Reducing packaging waste is a huge topic in the restaurant industry right now, with an ever-growing number of businesses announcing various moves to tackle their reliance on single-use plastic. Starbucks announced last year it would eliminate single-use plastic straws from its 28,000 locations by 2020. McDonald’s is trying to find a more sustainable hot/cold cup. KFC has said it will convert to renewable plastic sources by 2025.

Beyond businesses, the EU vowed it will ban single-use plastics by 2021. Stateside, Seattle became the first major U.S. city to ban single-use plastics, in 2018; California and Washington, D.C. NYC currently has legislation in place to enact a similar ban.

To be honest, there are probably enough initiatives in place at this point to fill a 1,500-word post. The question is whether they’ll have enough of an effect on consumer behavior to change our relationship with single-use plastics in restaurants. To be sure, programs like Yelp’s will get people thinking more about how much waste gets created just by getting a to-go order. Now it’s a matter of using these types of initiatives to get consumers beyond thinking and into action.

EU to Ban Single-Use Plastics by 2021

Yesterday, the European Parliament voted to ban single-use plastics — like straws, plates, coffee stirrers and lids, to-go containers, and cutlery — by 2021 (h/t The Guardian). The ban will go into effect in all EU member states and possibly the U.K., depending on what happens with Brexit.

The European Commission first proposed this ban last year, calling out the 10 single-use plastic items that make up 70 percent of all litter in EU waters and beaches. With this vote, the ban is official.

The legislation also outlines goals that by 2025 plastic bottles should be made of 25 percent recycled content, and that by 2029 90 percent of them should be recycled.

This is part of a global initiative to reduce plastic waste in oceans, which shakes out to about 8 million metric tons per year — all of which will take at least 450 years to biodegrade. Those are some pretty bleak statistics, but there’s some hope when you see countries around the world starting to instill plastic-reducing initiatives. In addition to this EU ban, Kenya has instated the world’s toughest ban on plastic bags, Montreal has axed single-use plastic bags, and Taiwan has plans to get rid of all single-use plastics by 2030.

Europe isn’t the only one trying to cut down on plastic consumption. Here in the U.S., we’ve also made some moves to eliminate single-use plastics, mostly straws. Starbucks announced it will eliminate plastic straws from all 28,000 of its locations by 2020, replacing them with a sort of adult sippy-cup lid. Starbuck’s home city of Seattle became the first major U.S. city to ban single-use plastics (straws, utensils, etc.) last year, followed by California and Washington, D.C. New York City might be next.

I’m not sure how quickly the U.S. will follow in Europe’s footsteps with a wide-reaching plastic ban of its own. We’re too obsessed with convenience and instant gratification. More feasibly, my colleague Jenn recently suggested that if food delivery companies got on board with plastic reduction, maybe replacing plastic cutlery with biodegradable options, that could be a massive help in our to-go-loving culture. Hopefully one or the other will happen before our oceans become even more clogged with plastics.