05/12/2023
Are you shy about bringing your own container to a take-out restaurant or café and asking for your order to go in it?
If you see this green sign in the window of a business in Silicon Valley, you can bring your own containers to fill without feeling awkward—and avoid single-use waste. The sign is like a beacon!
After friends and I started Silicon Valley Reduces (inspired by Roncy Reduces) and posted about it on social media, people contacted me with questions about starting their own groups. Ten additional groups are now up and running in the US (with a few more working on launching):
✨ Ithaca and Finger Lakes Reduces, part of Zero Waste Ithaca (NY)
✨ DC Reduces (for drinks and dry cleaners... BYO is not allowed for food...yet!)
✨ Sacramento Reduces (CA)
✨ Long Beach Reduces (CA)
✨ Stillwater Reduces (OK)
✨ Louiseville Reduces (KT)
✨ Detroit Reduces (MI)
✨ Baltimore Reduces (MD)
✨ Columbia County (NY)
✨ New York City, Upper West Side (NY)
We also have an umbrella group BYO - US Reduces.
Would you like to start a similar program where you live? You need only one other person (it's easier and more fun with a buddy), a sign and an online presence (website or a social media profile or both). Go here for more info on starting a group: https://zerowastechef.com/2023/02/09/normalize-bring-your-own-containers/
BYO is one part of the solution to the scourge of plastic pollution. Let's normalize it everywhere!
