Picture this. You are hanging out in your local downtown with friends, and you all decide to grab lunch to-go from a favorite local restaurant. After the meal is over, there is a mountain of trash, so you stuff take out containers, salad dressing cups, and plastic forks into the closest overflowing public trash can. Depressing, but unavoidable.
But what if your local downtown businesses collaborated to offer reusable containers to customers, free of charge? This is exactly what is happening in Northampton! Restaurants and cafes have joined together with our ReThink Disposable campaign and Recirclable to offer a user-friendly way to ditch throwaway dining ware!
Here’s how it works! Participating eateries share a local stash of reusable take-out containers. You, the customer, download the free Recirclable app on your phone. (Click here to download it!) When you order take-out, the business checks out one of the containers to you like a library book. You simply return the container to any participating business within 14 days, and they clean it and reuse it, just like all their other dishes! It’s free as long as you bring your container back. (Don’t worry! The app will send you reminders if a container you checked out is almost overdue!)
The trash crisis in the Northeast is getting worse. Massachusetts disposed of over 6 million tons of waste in 2023, and we increasingly pay to send trash to other states. We can’t keep burning and burying mountains of garbage in communities that already have more than their fair share of pollution, and solving a problem this massive will take more than individual changes. We need whole systems to change. That’s why our ReThink Dispoable campaign is building entire reuse programs in targeted downtown districts.
Local businesses who are piloting the new program say it’s easy to use and draws customers. The first restaurants to join are La Veracruzana and Joe’s Cafe. “We are big believers in ’together we can do more’ and are delighted to participate in this initiative. For every customer who brings their food home in a reusable container, one fewer single-use container ends up in the landfill. One doesn’t seem like much, but it really adds up, and it is great to see our clientele recognize the fact that their sustainability decisions can make a difference,” added Meaghan Sullivan, owner of Joe’s Cafe.
We aren’t done yet. We’re recruiting more Western Mass eateries to join this local reuse network, and meeting with leaders in other parts of the state to recruit more business districts.
You can help! Live and dine in Western Massachusetts? Download the Recirclable app and get started reducing waste!
Want to see your favorite restaurant join in? Learn more about our ReThink Disposable campaign here!
