Make Reusables at Restaurants Mainstream!
Pass SB 552 to eliminate single-use plastic foodware accessories and food packaging for dine-in customers in California.
Single-use disposable foodware has major environmental, community and human health impacts. Single-use plastic is particularly detrimental as bottles, straws, expanded polystyrene foam, and food wrappers consistently top the list of items our volunteers collect at cleanups. An estimated 561 billion single-use foodware items are used every year, generating approximately 4.9 million tons of waste. Around 20 percent of this single-use disposable foodware is used by customers dining in at an establishment.
While the problem may be complex, the solution is simple - we need to stop plastic at the source! Surfrider is advocating for the passage of SB 552 (Newman), which would prohibit restaurants in CA from providing a dine-in customer with any single-use foodware accessory or single-use food packaging.
This bill aligns with Surfrider’s Ocean Friendly Restaurant program which is fostering a community of like-minded restaurants working to make plastic-free dining mainstream. There are over 190 Ocean Friendly Restaurants in California already using reusables when dining in. This equates to about 41,500 plastic-free meals a day!
Read the SB 552 Fact Sheet for more information.