COVID-19 Position Statement: Far from signalling the end of reusables, the COVID-19 outbreak has underscored the importance of reuse systems and reuse infrastructure

Stopping the spread of COVID-19 and saving lives is quite rightly everyone’s priority right now, and will remain so for the foreseeable future. We face an unprecedented public health emergency. We extend our full support to health workers on the front lines dealing with COVID-19 and note that health professionals must have the tools they need to address the pandemic safely. We encourage everyone to continue to follow the latest advice of the Government, local agencies and the World Health Organisation on social distancing and hygiene practices.

As COVID-19 sweeps across the world, bubbling away in the background are countless other crises that humanity has yet to respond to adequately. One of these is our rubbish or waste. The global waste crisis has been around since well before the COVID-19 outbreak, it now continues throughout the outbreak, and will still be here once the dust settles.

The Takeaway Throwaways campaign tackles one aspect of the waste crisis: throwaway serviceware for food and drink, which includes coffee cups and lids, takeaway containers, cutlery, single-serve condiment and sauce pottles, and those soy fish things. The campaign calls on the New Zealand Government to do two things: 1) ban single-use disposable plastic serviceware; and 2) mandate co-designed, accessible reusable alternatives instead.

New Zealand is currently in a nationwide lockdown. All hospitality businesses and takeaway outlets are closed, temporarily ceasing the streams of throwaway serviceware. This hiatus is the perfect time for Takeaway Throwaways to reflect on the lessons learned about single-use and reusable serviceware in the lead-up to the pandemic, and to consider the way forward for post-lockdown Aotearoa.

After COVID-19, can we still expect an end to single-use?

Many in the zero waste and plastic-free communities are concerned that COVID-19 could bring a massive setback for the zero waste movement, undoing gains made in normalising reuse over the last few years. Public fear about whether reusables are safe or hygienic have started to resurface. These fears were amplified when international and local hospitality businesses began rejecting customer-provided reusables (such as coffee cups), with some even halting use of their in-house washable crockery and moving to disposables only. 

In some parts of the world, the plastics industry is taking this opportunity to capitalise on these fears in an effort to overturn laws and policies that restrict single-use plastics. The research and studies the industry has drawn on to back-up their claims about the health and safety benefits of single-use plastics are funded by the petrochemical and plastics industries and do not stand up to scientific evidence-based scrutiny. The times we live in may well be unprecedented, but the importance of looking to reliable, credible and unbiased sources of information (including peer-reviewed scientific papers, and the advice of responsible and responsive Governments and the World Health Organisation), remains.

Are reusables still safe?

Here at Takeaway Throwaways, we acknowledge that COVID-19 has unleashed a terrifying time upon us, and that hygiene considerations are paramount. Based on the information currently available, we remain unswayed in our resolution that for the health of both people and planet, our collective future lies in reuse, not single-use.

Medical and food safety experts have previously made clear that soap and hot water are effective at killing coronavirus on reusable serviceware. If accessible, dishwashers are most effective because of their high temperature and prolonged washing (see, for example, Food Standards Australia New Zealand and Ministry of Health). As new information about the novel coronavirus continues to emerge, we support calls for independent guidance from medical professionals to inform decisions about hygiene and serviceware.

Despite a perception of cleanliness, single-use disposable items may not be any safer than properly washed reusables. Single-use items are not sterile unless explicitly marked so. They can harbour viruses and pathogenic bacteria from exposure during the manufacture, transport and storage processes. Recent research has shown that the novel coronavirus can last in a transmittable form on all surfaces, including up to 2-3 days on plastic and 24 hours on cardboard.

The only way to prevent surface transmission of coronavirus is to sanitise product surfaces. We note that single-use items do not get washed with soap and hot water nor put through dishwashers before or after use.

Aside from the transmission of disease, it’s also important to remember that food packaging contains a wide range of chemical additives, many hazardous to human health. Migration of these toxic chemicals from disposables into our food and drinks is not an issue with non-plastic reusables.

Nevertheless, COVID-19 shows us that the way we go about reuse needs to get smarter

Without a doubt, COVID-19 has highlighted weaknesses in current approaches to waste reduction for things like takeaway food and drink. The frank reality is that we lack the necessary reuse systems and infrastructure to weather public health and civil emergencies.

Lesson number one: we need to build these systems and that infrastructure for clean, sanitised reusables at scale for on-site, takeaways and food delivery. This is already a core feature of the Takeaway Throwaways campaign. Our petition has always sought not only a ban on single-use disposable serviceware for food and drink but crucially, also, for the Government to mandate uptake of co-designed, accessible, reusable alternatives to these throwaway items.

Reuse systems and infrastructure means things like standardised cup or container lending schemes, which often operate on deposit systems. Homegrown examples include Again Again, CupCycling, Globelet, YumJar and Reusabowl. All these schemes have processes for safe take-back, washing and sterilisation built into the system (this responsibility is not on the customer). Many of these schemes are only nascent in New Zealand, but internationally countless examples exist. Over the coming days, Takeaway Throwaways will be compiling a full list of these international examples for our website. In the meantime, for a great summary of how reuse systems can work, check out this document by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.

We can’t put all our eggs in the BYO cup and container basket

To date, attempts to reduce single-use serviceware waste have focused on encouraging and cajoling individual customers to bring their own cups and containers for takeaways. Far too little attention has gone to the hospitality industry’s responsibility to find ways of distributing food and drink on-the-go in reusables, or to local and central government’s role in supporting, designing and mandating reusable alternatives at scale.

Don’t get us wrong, here at Takeaway Throwaways we are big supporters of BYO reusable serviceware. BYO remains an essential part of the move away from single-use and it always will do. All our team have used BYO cups and containers for donkey’s years. In fact, we prefer to use our own. We know where they’ve been. We know we’ve washed them. And we can use our favourite mug with the “World’s Best Dad” text on it.

But when something like COVID-19 happens, we need systems to fall back on that are resilient in the face of public health and civil emergencies. Such systems are standardised, shared across the hospitality industry, have sterilisation built into the system. Outside of emergency contexts, these systems are also convenient and ready-to-go for those segments of the population who will never voluntarily carry around their own reusable cup. Early indications also suggest that well-designed reuse systems are cheaper for hospo businesses than single-use serviceware.

Takeaway Throwaways is calling for a national, coordinated approach

Many of the world’s existing reuse systems for takeaway food and drink have been set up and run by enterprising individual businesses. Takeaway Throwaways believes that to really get to scale, Government involvement is needed to bring the whole hospitality industry on board, standardise the reusables used, and oversee the design process to ensure all stakeholders are involved (including communities with access needs). Ultimately, a national approach will reduce complexity and inconsistency, while delivering reuse systems that are easier and cheaper for consumers and businesses, and inclusive and accessible for all New Zealanders.

A coordinated approach can be achieved through our Waste Minimisation Act 2008, including tools like the mandatory product stewardship schemes that the Government is already developing. Have a browse of how important we believe the Government’s role is in supporting reuse. 

When the dust settles from COVID-19, Takeaway Throwaways will continue to call on the Government to help New Zealand design and implement the best reuse systems possible for a healthier, cleaner, greener Aotearoa. If you support this endeavour, you can sign the Takeaway Throwaways petition here.