As single-use plastics vanish, how will restaurants have to adapt their takeout?

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Jordan Heath Rawlings So Friday night is takeout night at our house and the kid likes sushi. Like really, really likes sushi. So that’s what we get. And it comes in. What I have to admit is an embarrassing amount of individual containers. There are separate ones for the rice, for the fish, for the soup, for the salad, for the edamami, the teriyaki and the tempura. And I am probably forgetting a few. At the end of the meal, there’s a gigantic pile of containers, and all of them are what we would define as single use plastics. Some of them seem to be recyclable, some of them definitely aren’t. I am basically guessing which is which. And I already know exactly how little of my weekly recycling actually ends up being recycled. So whatever. It’s a mess of garbage and I feel guilty. And unless something changes, that’s how it is. Well, something’s changing. This year begins the phase in of the federal government’s plan to get rid of single use plastics. And the biggest item on the list are those takeout containers. This is a fascinating problem because how do you replace something that has become both so ubiquitous and yet so diverse that it serves hundreds of different purposes? Will the new containers that hold your burger work for soup, work for rice? What about stuff that comes with sauce on it? What about different sizes and heat retention and everything else these containers have been adapted for over the years. Right now, the clock has just begun to tick, but restaurants across the country are searching for solutions. So don’t be surprised if sometime in the next month or two, you open a bag, hopefully a paper bag full of takeout, and you see some very different things holding your meal. And when you do, ask yourself these three questions. First, does this actually work for the food I’m eating? What does this mean for the restaurant that I’m supporting? And finally, most importantly, will this actually make a difference? I’m Jordan Heath-Rawlings. This is The Big Story. Rosa Saba is a business reporter with the Canadian Press. Hello, Rosa.

Rosa Saba Hi. Thanks for having me.

Jordan You’re very welcome. And maybe before we get into what’s changing right now, this year, can you explain to us a little bit of the history behind the federal government looking to ban single use plastics in general? You know, how long has this been percolating?

Rosa Saba Yeah, so I think, you know, as a society, we’ve known that single use plastics are an issue for a while. But I was just taking a look at the history of this and the government announced that it was looking into specifically a single use plastic ban in mid 2019. Feels like a long time ago, but it really isn’t. In the grand scheme of things, it’s not necessarily the first thing the government has done on plastics overall. So in 2018, with the G Seven. They helped develop the Ocean Plastics charter. And later the same year, the federal, provincial and territorial government adopted a Canada wide strategy on zero plastic waste and also an action plan. So the single use plastic span is part of phase one of that action plan. So it is part of a bigger picture. And it was actually supposed to be phased in a little earlier at the end of 2021, so it was delayed by a year. It’s been through consultations, changes to the timeline, a scientific assessment, and in the meantime, some provinces and municipalities have actually already made their own bands. Some retailers are ahead of the curve. And we’ve also seen kind of a more social movement to get rid of plastic straws in particular. That happened several years ago. So this is really just one part of a much bigger story.

Jordan When it comes to plastics, we’re mostly going to talk about takeout and food containers today, but just in general, while we talk about the issue, what actually does single use plastics encompass?

Rosa Saba These are things that are made to be used once. So plastic grocery bags, stir sticks, takeout containers, you know, tons of other things. Think of like the plastic around your six pack of of beer or of Coca Cola, for example, you know, and even if you, the consumer, are reusing these things, I know many of us reuse plastic bags, they’re still considered single use plastics because they’re not officially reusable or recyclable. That’s the other big one. If something’s recyclable, it’s not single use. But many of these things are not recycled or are not able to be recycled in certain jurisdictions.

Jordan So in terms of 2023, and you just mentioned that it’s been delayed and it’s starting to be phased in now, what kinds of single use stuff is being phased out first? And what’s the general timeline? Understanding that I guess it’s probably still subject to change. Yeah, things can always change, but actually the items that are affected by this ban don’t necessarily change over time. It’s more so like the life cycle. What part is being banned?

Rosa Saba So the first phase began in December, December 20, and it prohibits the manufacturing and import for sale of a range of single use plastics. So that includes checkout bags like the ones in grocery stores, cutlery, so forks, knives and chopsticks takeout containers made partially or fully from certain types of plastic. That does include styrofoam, but there’s other types as well. Stir sticks, drinking straws, except for accommodations, and then plastic ring carriers as well, although that’s in June. I don’t really know why there’s an extra six months there. So that first phase is about manufacturing and import for sale of that group of single use plastics. And then at the end of 2023, we’re going to see a ban on the sale of these products except for ring carriers, which are again six months later. And then in December 2025, the ban will be on the manufacturer, import and export for sale of all these products. So it’s not that they’re adding more products to the ban over time, although that’s certainly possible. It’s about sort of what exactly is being banned and like what activity.

Jordan So while that stuff gets phased in, let’s talk about takeout in particular. This episode is airing on a Friday that’s takeout night, at least at my house, probably at a lot of people’s. What can people expect to see over this coming year? What’s changing now and in the future?

Rosa Saba Yeah, so as I mentioned, you’ll notice I didn’t say anything about restaurants or other businesses being banned from using these products. It’s all about manufacturing, importing, selling, exporting. Right. So many restaurants and bars and cafes buy these things in bulk and have a lot left over, especially if they stocked up and then were closed for the pandemic or something and they’re not being banned from using them. So you’re still going to get a lot of single use plastics in restaurants, cafes and bars. But you’ve likely already noticed over the past year or two that many restaurants and other food service establishments have already started changing what they’re using. Right? So you’re just going to see a continuation of this change. You might see some of them trying out different things. One day they’ve got maybe something compostable, the next day they’ve got paper. Some of these businesses are going to have to figure out what works best for their product. But you’re definitely not going to see single use plastics disappear from food service overnight. It is still going to take time, especially as they use up these like, huge basements and boxes full of plastic. Well, I am interested in this, though, and this is why we wanted to talk to you, because it’s kind of a neat experimental phase now, right.

Jordan As you mentioned, we don’t actually know what’s going to become the consensus in terms of packaging or what we can expect our food to arrive in or do we? Is there anything that’s starting to emerge as like, this is where it’s probably going to land?

Rosa Saba I don’t think that there’s really any one product that’s going to emerge as king, so to speak. Just like there hasn’t been any one single use plastic takeout container that has emerged as king. You certainly see a ton of those styrofoam containers exactly the ones I’m talking about. But not all businesses can use those, right? Like, what if you’re selling Ramen or Pho? Like you can’t use a styrofoam container that isn’t watertight. So there’s already such a variety out there and I don’t think that there’s ever going to be one single product. But yeah, you mentioned that there’s a lot of this trial and error. Right. So I was speaking to Paul Bogner from Service Inspired Restaurants, which operate sort of a number of restaurant chains and they were actually using recyclable plastic containers, which they thought were going to be fine, but then they found out that not all jurisdictions would recycle the ones they had chosen, actually Toronto specifically. And so they were like, well, we don’t want to have a different option in each restaurant. We want one option for all the restaurants. So over the past six to eight months, they’ve been literally just trying different options. Some people might have ordered from one of those restaurants and actually gotten a message that says, hey, we’ll cover this for you if you try out this new container and give us your feedback. Right. Or they would get their employees to test it out. And he said they tested quite a number of things and finally settled on a waxed cardboard takeout box that’s both recyclable and biodegradable. It seemed to work really well for them. And obviously, I don’t think that their restaurants are really big on soup. So that wax cardboard takeout box might not work for every restaurant, but that’s what’s worked for them. So you’re going to see more of that with the EU restaurants and bars and cafes sort of trying different things and maybe even asking for your feedback as a customer.

Jordan You talked to, as you mentioned, a bunch of restaurants about this, and I’m interested in what they have to say about the utility of the stuff they’re trying out compared to plastic. And I mentioned that because I know there have been kind of big fights and some pushback over both straws and plastic bags, simply kind of saying these don’t work as well as the plastic ones. Are they running into that?

Rosa Saba I didn’t hear a ton of that for this particular article. But I do know that in the past there have been complaints from restaurants. I’m starting to think maybe I should have reached out to a restaurant that primarily does soup, right? Because frankly, I didn’t hear anything particularly negative from the restaurants I did talk to for this article. That being said, I think that a lot can change in a year or two. I think there are probably a lot of better options out there right now or being developed. But I do know that in the past, a lot of restaurants, they did have some complaints about the quality of these products. So did customers. Frankly, I think that non plastic straws that have at least anecdotally gotten better since we first did that big shift back in, what was it, 2018? 2019. But they still kind of suck. And listen, I’m happy to use them. They still kind of suck. They do. Some of them do. And you’ll notice that a lot of places have actually just gone away from straws entirely. They’ll have them for people who need them, because there are people who need them. They’ll have the plastic ones and the band does accommodate that, which is obviously necessary. But I’ve noticed a lot of places just kind of not getting at straws at all. Starbucks just has new lids that look like sippy cups, so people adapt. But when I was looking back over some of the coverage of this band as it went on, my colleague Mia Robson, who’s been at the FP for longer than I have, she did a lot of coverage of this. And I noticed that really one of the biggest issues restaurants and bars had was not necessarily the quality of the particular things. They were saying that they needed time to find good ones. They were saying not all of them are good. We need to find what works for us. We need to find a consistent supply chain too. We’ve used the same suppliers of these mass produced products for so long. We need to find not only something that works for our food, works for our business, but that we can count on being delivered, reliably, something that we can afford. So they were really concerned, actually about this sort of happening overnight and them sort of being left in the lurch, essentially, and not really knowing where to turn. Since you mentioned affordability, let’s talk about that. We’ve done a couple of episodes, probably more than a couple by now, during the Pandemic, speaking to food reporters like Cory Mints about how the last few years have impacted restaurants. And one of the things that has come up is that restaurants already kind of operate on a very thin profit margin and that margin has shrunk. How might this impact the bottom line of restaurants and what do they have to say about the costs behind it? Yeah, I mean, there’s no question that restaurants emerge from the Pandemic really struggling, even if they’re back to sort of quote unquote, normal operations. Now many of them are dealing with debt from the Pandemic, right. So that’s definitely making margins slimmer in an industry that, for the most part, has pretty slim margins to begin with. It’s kind of a labor of love for many people. Right. And there’s no question that many of these new products for the moment are more expensive, not to mention just kind of the time, right. If you have your employees sort of testing new things, for example, that’s also money that you’re spending on time to sort of source new things, test new things. It really, again, is going to vary by product. Restaurants Canada was saying some of these products could be up to 125% more expensive, which is pretty big for something that is sort of a recurring expense, right? Yeah. But there’s also some optimism that these things will get cheaper, right, as they become more common, as they’re made in sort of larger quantities, as the technology, the science gets better, that it will overall get cheaper. But I will also say it’s going to be easier for big businesses. It’s always easier for big businesses, right. They can get things in bulk and that kind of thing. And so those independent businesses which also might be the ones struggling the most financially, they may have a harder time both sourcing something that works for them and finding something that is cost effective. So I certainly hope that it gets cheaper for them in particular, because not all businesses can afford to do that sort of ongoing trial and error and whatnot that maybe the bigger guys can. There are other ways they can cut down. Of course, I mentioned straws. Some places are just not doing straws at all. Paul Bogner again mentioned that they transitioned to bamboo cutlery, but they’ve also started asking people who are getting take out, do you want cutlery? Right? And a lot of people say no. So that kind of kind of works out for everyone. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been trying to just say no to cutlery entirely if I’m eating food at home or whatnot. So there’s different ways that this could go, but there’s no question that it will represent a higher cost for many businesses, at least for a few years.

Jordan When you hear about these businesses that have a negative opinion of this, what are they specifically focused on? You mentioned cost. Is there anything else that they’re worried about? And I guess in general, has the government addressed any of their concerns?

Rosa Saba I don’t know if there’s anything specific there’s the timeline that I mentioned and businesses did get an extra year. So they have had that time to sort of test. And whatnot they talked about supply chain problems. Again, those have been resolving over the past several months. Some of those things have started to have been addressed on their own. But I definitely did heard this from some business owners and others. Just kind of this idea that all this effort, all this money, all this time for something that is a drop in the bucket. It feels like low hanging fruit. It feels like businesses are bearing the brunt. Businesses are the scapegoat for something. And they do have a point to a certain extent. Environmental groups have said themselves this is a good first step. But the items on this list of single use plastics that are involved in the ban, they only make up a relatively small percentage of Canada’s annual plastic waste. I think the last figure I saw was around 5%. So they’re not wrong in saying that this is a relatively small part of the bigger picture. But as I mentioned, this is a part of a bigger plan. There are other things that they want to do. Hopefully they’re just continuing to be open to consultations, to be open to feedback. But at the end of the day, 5% of a lot is still a lot. And I think that’s what the environmental groups would probably counter. Well, this is the last thing I want to talk about because this is the kind of big picture place these discussions always seem to end up in. And that’s the end result of who’s actually being asked to pick up this slack, right? Like, this relies on restaurants and ultimately it relies on the consumers to kind of do their bit.

Jordan And the question I have, and I’m sure environmental groups have it too, is that are we asking individuals once again to try to sort of make up for all the plastics being pushed out by industry?

Rosa Saba It’s absolutely a criticism that you hear both from restaurants, from businesses, and also just from regular people and from environmental groups. Frankly, it’s a valid concern. Again, like I said, this is part of kind of a bigger plan. And there’s a lot of talk by the government environmental groups about the need to sort of improve the life cycle of plastic in Canada generally, because actually there’s quite a lot of plastic that goes out that could be recycled that is not recycled, right? There’s a lot that’s thrown out that could be recycled, whether for a variety of reasons. It often comes down to recycling infrastructure. It comes down to plastics being sent overseas and then not being recycled. It comes down to consumers not recycling things and just throwing them out instead. And it comes down to different jurisdictions and what they have, the infrastructure and kind of the system to recycle. So I know that one major part of the government’s plan is to try and improve that actual life cycle. One thing that I did learn as I was researching for this episode and for this article, there’s some concern that the restaurants Canada brought up that people aren’t going to dispose of these things properly. That was my next question, right? Ultimately, it relies upon people who get these takeout containers to make sure they end up in the proper facility. And we’ve done episodes about recycling in the past, so I know how little of recyclable stuff ends up getting recycled. That’s something that I thought about too. I feel like I’m pretty good about recycling and composting, but there’s also that question in the back of my head, even I’m putting in all this work, but is it even getting recycled? Right? There’s a lot of things that as consumers, I feel like we don’t even know about how recycling works. But one thing that I did learn that hopefully will give you a little bit of heart is that a lot of these new products that are replacing, let’s say, the Styrofoam containers, the plastic bags, imagine that wax covered paper takeout box that we were talking about before. So it’s recyclable and it’s also biodegradable, right? If that ends up in a landfill because somebody did not recycle it, it is still going to break down significantly better and significantly faster than a lot of these single use plastic containers that are being phased out, right? So there are these options that are coming onto the market that even if they end up in a landfill, it’s still better than the alternative, and I think that that’s something important to keep in mind. It doesn’t mean you should just be throwing them out. And Canada, both on a federal, on a provincial and on a municipal level, there’s a lot of calls for the roles around recycling and the infrastructure around recycling to be made more consistent. Calls from business, calls from environmental groups, calls from all over the place. So there’s a lot of improvement to be done, I think it’s fair to say. But that doesn’t mean that these newer options are being put to waste, so to speak. That all that work and that effort and that trial and error is being put to waste if one takeout container ends up in the landfill instead of a recycling facility, that’s good to know and maybe that’s a good place to end it.

Jordan It’s always fascinating to get a look at how something that’s just so ubiquitous in our daily lives is changing. So. Thank you, Rosa.

Rosa Saba Thanks for having me. Yeah, it’s interesting. As a consumer, I feel like I’ve seen these changes happen, even just at the grocery store. I personally have gotten a lot better at bringing reusable bags to the grocery store. So I think we’re going to be okay.

Jordana I hope so. Thanks again.

Rosa Saba Thank you.

Jordan Rosa Saba reporting for the Canadian Press. That was the big story. I am not lying about the sushi, nor am I exaggerating. We are either having sushi tonight or we are having a temper tantrum. And I get to choose. You can find us at the bigstory Podcast. CA you can find us on Twitter at the Big Story. FPN. You can write to us at hello with the big storypodcast. CA. And of course, you can call 416-935-5935. If you’ve had a weird takeout experience, I’d love to hear about it. I want to see what’s next for these things. You can find The Big Story in every single podcast player. You can ask it on any smart speaker by saying, play The Big Story podcast. Thanks for listening. I’m Jordan Heath Rawlings. Have a safe weekend and we’ll talk Monday.