Remember when we went dumpster-diving into downtown Jamaica Plain trash cans a year ago? That was the start of something big - a project to help one neighborhood take on single-use disposable waste. Clean Water Action was awarded a Mass DEP grant to help businesses switch to reusable dining ware and reduce trash, and with the support of our friends at JP Zero Waste and Recirclable, we did just that. Here’s an update on the project!
In the original waste audit, we sorted 324 pounds of trash and recycling. There wasn’t much we could do to reduce the number of dog poop bags or pickleballs. (Pickleballs? Really? Yes, a shocking number of pickleballs are in trash cans in JP. The more you know!) But there was a lot of room for improvement in plastic cups, take out containers, plastic forks, and straws!
First, our Zero Waste Organizer, Amber Schmidt, canvassed downtown restaurants. What she learned was that JP businesses were almost entirely using reusable items for dine-in customers. Great news! This meant the work would focus on reducing take-out trash.
The easiest steps for businesses to take were encouraging customers to Bring Their Own cups and containers and implementing Skip the Stuff policies. Skip the Stuff means not automatically stuffing take-out bags with extra straws, napkins, and forks without a customer asking for them. This means less trash generated, lower overhead expenses for restaurants, and fewer random soy sauce packets in your silverware drawer! A dozen restaurants in the targeted Center/South Main Street downtown signed on for Skip the Stuff and/or Bring Your Own policies.
Funding from our Mass DEP grant also allowed us to recruit 5 businesses to join a pioneering reusable take-out container pilot program, Recirclable, by covering the start-up cost. These 5 restaurants (JP Seafood, Jadu, Gangnam Spice, Ula, and TK Eats) all encouraged take-out customers to check-out a free reusable container like a library book and then return it to any of the participating businesses to be washed, sterilized, and put back into circulation.
This directly prevented single-use trash and also drove business to local restaurants in interesting ways! For example, Jadu received more returned containers than they checked out. What does this mean? Customers who got take-out one night from a different restaurant chose to patronize Jadu for their coffee break the next day because Jadu was a place they could return their Recirclable container too. And don’t worry – our Clean Water Action ReThink Disposable team was on the ground making sure the containers were always evenly distributed between restaurants.
As the summer drew to a close, it was time to find out: What do JP neighbors think about the changes? We needed canvassers, so we partnered with the Tufts University SHAPE program to recruit dozens of first-year students who were excited to help out. The students chatted with neighbors on JP streets with a short survey and this is what we found out:
- Most neighbors are aware of and concerned about microplastic pollution.
- Almost 80% of residents reported getting take-out at least once or twice a month, with 37% saying they eat take-out multiple times a week! Wow!
- Over 80% reported noticing when take-out is served in Styrofoam or black plastic containers, and over 60% of those surveyed prefer restaurants who don’t use those for take-out orders.
- So far, 16% of neighbors surveyed are bringing their own beverage containers to participating businesses, and just under 30% of residents surveyed know about the reusable take-out container program.
That’s a great start! Neighbors know what the problem is, and they are learning about the solutions. We will continue to do more local outreach to spread the word!
Fighting take-out trash by recruiting local downtowns is part of a nationwide Clean Water Action campaign, ReThink Disposable. For example, our New Jersey team lobbied for and passed a pioneering Skip the Stuff law this year that just took effect in August! Instead of asking consumers to make individual choices to save the planet, we’re challenging the status quo and building entirely new systems! Burying and burning trash pollutes. We can stop trash before it starts!
Learn more, including how to recruit your favorite restaurant to join the program, on our ReThink Disposable website.
