Enviro Girl and her family don’t eat out much, but when they do, they go to a locally owned family restaurant. When the craving for a burger and fries hits, they go to a locally owned chain of burger joints, and only patronize Culver’s or McDonald’s when in dire straits while on the road to visit relatives in another state. Part of their virtue in this matter has to do with the distance they have to travel–the nearest fast food restaurant (unless you count a Subway in a local convenience store) is 10 minutes away by car. By the time the Momvan gets loaded and driven, Enviro Girl can slap together sandwiches or pasta.
When they do go out to eat on that rare occasion, Enviro Girl is astonished by the amount of waste generated by take-out food. Individually wrapped portions, condiment packets, stacks of paper napkins and straws get loaded onto their tray–in paper BAGS no less, even though they’re eating in and the tray seems sufficient to move their food from counter to table. The health factor of eating fast food is bad enough, but the pile of garbage left behind after a meal is indisputably problematic. And then there’s the matter of the plastic toys double-wrapped in plastic that get tossed into her kids’ meals.
Enviro Girl has learned that you can request “No toy” with a happy meal–you just say, “No toy.” You also save .50-.75 per meal because that toy costs extra, even though the menu doesn’t tell you that. She skips straws and cup lids, opting to fill cups and drink straight from them like she does at home. These are small choices, but they do add up–imagine if every parent buying a kids’ meal at a fast food restaurant said, “No toy.” There’d be nothing to sell at rummage sales!
Seriously, eating fast food generates a LOT of waste. Sitting down in a restaurant generates a paper napkin and maybe a straw, depending on your drinking preference. Enviro Girl usually needs the napkins, but opts out of the straw and you can too–here’s how:
You can buy your own straw–or a family four-pack–from GlassDharma, never needing to use another plastic disposable straw again! GlassDharma’s handmade in the U.S.A. glass drinking straws come in a range of sizes, from chubby and stout for the toddler set to tall and slightly bended for the iced-tea-by-the-pool set. By using a glass drinking straw, you eliminate waste in landfills (think of how those straws and cup lids add up–if McDonald’s, Starbucks, Burger King, Subway, Wendy’s and Culver’s serve up millions of beverages each week, you can bet those orders resulted in a lot of straws ditched into the garbage.
The other advantage of glass drinking straws includes avoiding the toxins that leach out of plastic. If reducing plastic is important to you, opting out of a plastic straw is an easy place to target. Like the plastic shopping bag, plastic straws could become the exception, not the rule, if consumers gave this issue a little thought. GlassDharma’s straws are durable, dishwasher & microwave safe, and come with a pretty hefty guarantee.
Enviro Girl encourages you to check out GlassDharma’s site–the family four-pack of drinking straws with a scrubbing brush costs $23, and the way Enviro Girl’s kids like to drink out of straws, that’s money well spent in her opinion. But if buying your own reusable glass straw doesn’t appeal, Enviro Girl encourages you to just “Say No” to the straw. And while you’re at it, take a pass on the plastic lid, too!
Since we almost never eat fast food, it would never have occurred to me to use your tactics to cut back on waste. Thanks for the ideas.