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?
