How much plastic cutlery is wasted?

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Everybody has one of those dumb drawers full of plastic utensils that we got when we had food delivered to our home. We all know this trend is ridiculous. Even the restaurants know it. No one needs plastic cutlery delivered to their home. No one needs it delivered to their office either. Everyone already has cutlery. Yet the plastic comes anyway, by default. It&#;s an unconscious and wasteful habit.

Maybe you think, &#;It&#;s just one fork,&#; but multiplied by millions upon millions, those plastic utensils are terrible for the environment. Some estimates put the number of individual plastic utensils wasted at 40 billion per year in the United States alone. After just one single use, most of them are thrown out and end up in landfills and in our waterways.

Plastic cutlery is one of those items that won&#;t get recycled even when you put it in the recycling. It&#;s too contaminated. It&#;s too small. It's too lightweight. So those 40 billion plastic utensils per year are a complete waste.

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Something has to change. Something has to move us from unconscious trend to conscious action. The non-profit organization Habits of Waste is focused on changing people&#;s habits by encouraging everyone to rethink this type of wasteful behavior. &#;It&#;s so embedded in our daily routine, it&#;s so normal that we don&#;t even see it,&#; says Habits of Waste founder, Sheila Morovati. She seeks to raise awareness of the dangers of a throwaway society, foster grass roots change and help everyone become aware of the power they have to influence others.

Morovati intends to create a new cultural norm. &#;Individuals should realize that their actions matter, many don&#;t understand the power they have especially collectively,&#; she says. &#;It&#;s a massive wake up call. You can make a difference that can shift the trajectory of collective impact.&#;

The #CUTOUTCUTLERY campaign is asking UberEats, Postmates and Grubhub to install an &#;Option for plastic single use cutlery&#; feature on their apps to eliminate unnecessary waste. This would force users to opt-in if they needed the plastic cutlery and would make opting out the default preference.

In April, Uber Eats announced a pilot program with different options for customers to choose whether or not they want to receive straws and/or utensils from restaurants, although I was unable to find a way to either opt in or out of plastic utensils from their website.

Someday soon, we'll all be carrying our own cutlery just like we carry our own water bottles now. It&#;s not as hard as it seems and it&#;s much better than having a drawer full of plastic that makes you feel guilty for throwing it in the trash.

Every day, almost 100 million plastic utensils are discarded across the United States. The cost to dispose of single-use food ware in a single year is estimated at about 1 billion dollars. Despite these shocking numbers, many restaurants still give out disposable cutlery with every take-out and delivery order. Intro -B is a bill that would require food establishments to only provide non-reusable utensils, condiments, and napkins upon request. While similar bills have been successfully passed in major cities such as Los Angeles, the New York City Council has yet to even have a council hearing concerning this bill. The New York League of Conservation Voters supports the passage of Intro -B to reduce the city&#;s residential waste.

Take-out and delivery orders have almost doubled since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. While some food delivery apps do give the option to only receive single-use utensils upon request, this does not cover the thousands of daily orders made through other means. The use of disposable cutlery has increased dramatically in the last year and a half, even through dine-in, as many establishments choose to provide non-reusable food ware for sanitary purposes. Although this may be effective at lessening the chances of cross-contamination, it has a long-lasting impact on not only the environment but the economy as well.

Manufacturing plastic requires the use of fossil fuels, which significantly increase global gas emissions. The Mayor&#;s Office reported approximately 36 million pounds of single-use plastic food ware is collected from New York City&#;s residential waste stream. Disposable forks, spoons, and bowls can take up to 1,000 years to decompose naturally. Since these items are often too small for recycling machines, they end up in landfills or incinerators. Many of these items are petroleum-based, and even when they do degrade over the course of decades, they end up as microplastics. Microplastics can find their way into waterways and wildlife, eventually contaminating our food supply and ending up in our bodies. 

The restaurant industry in the United States spends $19 billion on plastic utensils annually. Many of these utensils end up unused, sitting in our cars and kitchens for months to years. The city of New York singlehandedly spends $42 million a year just to manage the waste from single-use cutlery. Passing this bill would mean hundreds of thousands of dollars saved each year from businesses and the city&#;s budget. By simply asking patrons to opt for single-use food ware, we can see tremendous economic and environmental benefits.

The passage of Intro -B would provide a much more sustainable means of consumption in New York City. It would require food establishments to follow the mandate and provide education for both consumers and businesses alike. NYLCV hopes the city council will have a hearing before the end of to publicly discuss this bill.

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