BETHLEHEM, Pa. — Even at dine-in restaurants, where plates, cups and cutlery are generally reusable, there oftentimes are many disposable products, too, Veronika Vostinak said Wednesday.
“Once you get your attention drawn to it, you'll see maybe they're not using majority disposables, but there are still a lot of disposable items: straws, cups for children, those condiment cups, sometimes even utensils,” Vostinak, Allentown sustainability coordinator, said.
“You'll start to notice it, once you start to pay attention, that it's more than you think, and even just small changes, if it's one item, it can have really big diversion potential or opportunities for waste reduction.”
“This has given so much for us to think about possible things to do as a network — so many ideas."Allentown EAC Co-Chair Tinku Khanwalkar
Vostinak gave a hourlong presentation to the Lehigh Valley Environmental Advisory Council Network on her experience with plastic reduction efforts, targeting single-use foodwares and reusables for dine-in.
More than a dozen people, from EACs in Allentown, Bethlehem, Easton, and Lower Saucon and Whitehall townships, attended.
“This has given so much for us to think about possible things to do as a network — so many ideas,” Allentown EAC Co-Chairwoman Tinku Khanwalkar said.
Single-use foodware, reusables for dine-in
Before becoming Allentown’s sustainability coordinator — a first-of-its-kind job in the Valley — Vostinak was the first sustainability analyst for Half Moon Bay, a California coastal city south of San Francisco.
“My specific experience is with developing, adopting, implementing and enforcing a single-use foodware ordinance, a reusable for dine-in ordinance," she said.
"And I've also conducted some reusable pilots in my position at Half Moon Bay. So I've worked a lot in this space.”
The plastic-reduction ordinance on which she worked expanded on an existing polystyrene ban, and required that all disposable foodware from prepared food vendors — restaurants, cafes, grocery stores — were both fiber-based and compostable.
“We [also] had a requirement for reusables to be required for dine-in, so you could not use any disposable items for dine-in,” she said.
“That goes both for the things that they're served on, but also, if there was, like, say, a self-serve kiosk, where you could get condiments and there'd be condiment cups — those needed to be reusable, as well.”
Another requirement was that any single-use accessories, such as plates, utensils, condiments or napkins, were available only upon customer request — not self-serve.
“There was an opportunity for the restaurant to ask if people wanted an accessory in two cases, when they're in a drive- through and when they're using a takeout platform,” she said.
“I had more conversations than I would like with DoorDash and Uber Eats about that specifically. But you'll notice on a lot of those apps, there's now a checkbox that says, ‘I want utensils.’
"This accessories-upon-request eventually became a California state law, and because of that California state law, it's included in a lot of apps.
“So that's why that's there. People say legislation doesn't work. It does.”
The ordinance came with a hardship exemption for restaurants, as well as funding for technical assistance, including mini-grants available for those that couldn't afford the upfront costs associated with buying reusables.
Enforcement was complaint-based.
“This caused issues because people don't want to rat out their favorite restaurant,” Vostinak said.
“In this particular case, we had an opportunity with our county, where our county had a model ordinance, and if we adopted a close-enough version to that model ordinance, the county would enforce it on our behalf, which was great. If that can work in some way, that's fantastic.”
Unfortunately, the county didn’t always enforce the ordinance, she said.
What could work in the Valley?
However, Half Moon Bay has a very different set of circumstances than the Lehigh Valley.
For example, California has a composting law, SB1383, that mandates organic waste collection for both residents and businesses.
And there are industrial composting facilities that can handle compostable cups and containers — they don’t break down in backyard composters.
Not only does Pennsylvania have no such requirement, the closest industrial composting facility to the Lehigh Valley is in Philadelphia.
California also already has banned polystyrene foam products such as cups, plates, bowls, clamshells and trays — all items still allowed and widely used in Pennsylvania.
However, there is legislation pending that would prohibit them.
“My personal opinion is I feel like reuse pilots and programs I would rather work instead of a means to an end of replacing one item with another item,” Vostinak said.
“The more that we can reduce or reuse is where I feel like is worth our energy, and then also, kind of moving in that direction, if we have some pilots, then we can work toward legislation.”
'How are we enforcing it?'
She talked about different aspects of an ordinance EAC members might consider for both compostables and reusables, including costs to businesses, customer experience and behaviors, enforcement and the possibility of existing examples.
“The first question that the city will ask you is, ‘How are we enforcing it? Who?’” she said. “So knowing, having some ideas of what the options are there, will be important.
“The next question they'll ask you is, ‘Who else has done it? How is it gone?’ And you can reach out to those municipalities. A lot of times, city staff are really happy to share their knowledge.”
Pitching reusables at events might be a good place to start, she said, as well as advocating for pilot programs at universities, corporate campuses and healthcare systems, where students or workers are getting food and disposing of any containers all in one place.
Lehigh University already has a reusable dishware program, through which student organizations can get up to 150 items, such as plates, bowls, cups and cutlery.
Asked by Allentown EAC member Craig Beavers about recommendations specific to the Valley, Vostinak said, “Personally, because we don't have the end-use for the compostables, I would only probably want to focus on polystyrene and reuse.”
Editor’s Note: Tinku Khanwalkar, who is quoted in this report as co-chair of the Allentown Environmental Advisory Council, also serves on the board of directors of Lehigh Valley Public Media, the parent organization of LehighValleyNews.com. Her involvement with the board had no influence on the reporting or editorial decisions related to this story.
