Search

K-12 students spend half their year in school, with up to 60% of students choosing school-provided lunch options. Pre-K and daycare kids are in these educational settings year-round. Unfortunately, many schools serve meals on disposable cafeteria foodware such as polystyrene foam trays and plastic utensils.

Each year we collaborate with our reuse partners to highlight our work reducing single use plastic foodware from our waste streams. Why? Well, we know that 50% of all plastic ever produced has been manufactured since 2000. We also know that plastic contains forever chemicals that are known to cause health problems in humans.

This week, we helped to release the 4th annual Who’s Minding the Store? report card grading 43 major retailers on their actions to keep toxic chemicals out of products and packaging. The study, conducted by the Mind the Store campaign, found that there has been dramatic improvement in retailer chemical action between 2016 and 2019, with the average grade moving from D+ to B- (for the eleven retailers evaluated since 2016). This consumer protection progress comes at a time when the Trump Administration has weakened or delayed action on hazardous chemicals that can cause cancer, reproductive