If you’ve noticed to-go order changes at your favorite local restaurants, you’re likely not the only one.
Washington’s single-use serviceware law went into effect January 1. Now when picking up a takeout order, to-go cutlery and condiment packets must be requested rather than automatically included.
The new law’s intent is to “modify encouraged consumer habits that reduce and eliminate waste,” said Heather Church, waste reduction and recycling coordinator at the Washington State Department of Ecology (DOE).
Church added in an email to The Northern Light that the law is not a ban on single-use items, but, instead, requires single-use items covered under the law to only be distributed to customers who request them. These items include utensils, drink stirrers, cold cup lids and sauce packets.
“This decreases the amount of unused and unwanted items that are disposed of in landfills, contaminate composting and recycling streams, and become roadside litter,” Church said.
Peace Arch City Café, in the heart of downtown Blaine, has been around for 10 years but the single-use plastic ban is nothing new to the restaurant, co-owner Kylie Bestul said.
“We never have automatically put single-use plastic items in to-go orders,” Bestul said. “Over 50 percent of our customers don’t want any of those things.”
She believes customers have been moving in the direction of a waste-free lifestyle for a while now.
“It’s not an insurmountable layer of complexity. Since the customer is our revenue, we need to accommodate them. We support the new ban, it’s in the right direction,” Bestul said. “As long as the customer gets what they want.”
Bestul said the café stays well stocked with to-go items because of the state’s fluctuating Covid-19 mandates for businesses during the pandemic.
According to data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 8.7 percent of three million tons of plastic was recycled in 2018.
Businesses save money long-term when reducing plastic because they don’t spend as much purchasing to-go inventory that won’t be used, said Brandi Hutton, toward zero-waste coordinator at Sustainable Connections in Bellingham. The DOE is responsible for implementing the new plastics law, and Sustainable Connections helps Whatcom County businesses reduce their waste and manage it responsibly.
Maine and California have similar to-go policies in place, Church said.
The new law is the first part of the state’s Senate Bill 5022 that went into effect last July, with the rest of the changes following in the next few years. The next change, slated in 2023, will require plastic trash bag and beverage bottle producers to include a minimum amount of recycled plastic. Plastic household, wine and dairy milk containers will be required to follow suit in the next few years.
The DOE said on its website the recycled plastic minimum will increase domestic markets for recycled materials and reduce economic dependence on newly-created plastics.
Under Senate Bill 5022, plastic foodservice items made of expanded polystyrene, commonly known as Styrofoam, will start becoming outlawed in 2023 with packing peanuts and then will expand to food service containers – such as Styrofoam to-go plates and cups – and recreational coolers in 2024.
“You have to invest in reducing dependence on plastic,” Hutton said. “The aim is to educate people.”
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