I was at McDonald's today with my mother for lunch and realized that probably 90% of what goes into their trash on a daily basis is recyclable. I mean, paper cups for drinks, paper wrappers and cardboard boxes for food items, plastic utensils and straws....it's kinda crazy if you think about it! Same thing with other fast food restaurants, coffee shops, etc (hence the pic of the Dunkin Donuts cup). I remember years ago at DD if you came in as an eat-in customer they'd give you your coffee or whatever in a regular porcelain cup or hard plastic (or even glass) glass--my sister used to work there, in fact, and brought a few of said cups home once, they had the DD logo on them and everything. Now you get paper or styrofoam no matter if you're eating in or taking out! Is this really better for them economically? Now they sell reusable cups for people to get their coffee in, would it be that hard or more expensive to offer them for one-time use of eat-in customers? "For here or to go?" is a standard question at these places when employees are taking orders, it shouldn't be too much trouble for them to pick between different types of cups depending on the answer given. Am I making sense here? At least maybe they should have recycling bins available so the recyclable stuff can be easily separated from the "real trash". IMO most people are used to recycling at home so it should be fairly simple to switch from what these establishments do now to a recycling system. It would go a long long way toward lessening the amount of stuff that ends up in landfills every year, reducing raw materials usage and cleaning up the environment in the process. And if they wanted to get REALLY environmentally friendly they could compost the food waste and either use the compost in their landscaping plans or offer it to the local community for residential use. What do you think?
5 comments:
I've actually written to DD before inquiring as to WHY on earth they still use styrofoam when the rest of the world knows that styrofoam will clog up our landfills for 500 years after they are used. They sent me a very generic letter stating that they use the "better" styrofoam (whatever that is), and is 'very concerned' about the environment. Yeah, ok...
I've never really liked drinking out of a styrofoam cup. I believe it alters the taste of the beverage. I avoid places that still use them!
Great post!
Great post! Why don't we get "real" mugs or cups when we go to these types of restaurants when we eat in? We should!
And I don't think I ever see a garbage bin AND a recycling bin anywhere in these restaurants.. And you just know that nobody is going to go in and separate them afterward.. such a shame, we so easily recycle at home, more restaurants should be as responsible as the general population is.. or I hope they are!
Seriously, I wish all the fast food and other restaurants would start to change to reusable things. Yeah, they'd have to wash them and what not, but seriously, they make SO much trash.
-Caly
http://craftyequine.blogspot.com
It makes sense to me. There's no reason that fast food places cant have REAL dishes for eat-in customers. It would even create at least one more job, cause somebody has to run the dishwasher, right?
I think more of ALL companies (not just foodie companies) need to start focusing on recycling. There is so much corporate waste that even if every individual person recycled everything recyclable it still wouldn't do much good.
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