To reduce excessive pollution, let’s demand that food and drink businesses serve customers sustainably.

Food & Drink establishments produce an enormous amount of pollution from single use plastics, styrofoam, to non-recyclable containers. Some establishments (like Starbucks), have started allowing and encouraging customers to bring their own cups to help reduce pollution, but other places, (like many boba tea houses), are doing the opposite. While the trend of tapioca, (bubble tea or boba’s), continues to rise; so is the excessive use of “single use plastics” and the unnecessary pollution created by these establishments, and many others. However these establishments are not being held accountable for their excessive of plastic waste. They’re not helping to shed light on the impact of pollution, or encouraging consumers to use eco-friendly cups, straws, or bags. As a result, plastic waste is increasing without proper disposal.

Facts:
• Every day, 8 million new pieces of plastic ends up in the ocean, and killing one million marine animals each year.
• Out of the plastic produced, 50%, (or 380 million tons per year) are single-use plastics including all the cups, lids, and straws for boba tea drinks.
• About 29% of all greenhouse gas emissions come from packaging and food and drink takeout uses a lot of packaging.
• According to the US Environmental Protection Agency food packaging materials make up almost half of all municipal solid waste.
• While plastic is seen as recyclable, less than 9% of it is recycled and most of it is recycled incorrectly, and consequently ends up in landfills anyways.

This petition is to demand that all U.S. food and drink establishments take responsibility for the pollution that they create, and encourage consumers to consume sustainably by bringing their own containers for takeout food, and bringing their own tumblers for takeout drinks like boba teas, coffees, etc., by using more environmentally friendly to-go containers, and only teaming up with TerraCycle and offering customers a bin where they can donate their used (clean) cups and/or containers.

In order to make a significant change, we must demand that all take responsibility to encourage sustainability and conscious consumerism, to give customers a chance to recycle their containers correctly through TerraCycle, and provide them with environmentally friendly to-go containers.