by Danielle Nihill (Guest Blogger)

I wanted to share a recent experience I had with bringing my own take out containers to a restaurant. First, I should say that I live in an area where the idea of recycling is still somewhat new to some people and getting some people on board, is well, let’s just say a challenge. Knowing that we were going out to eat one night, I packed up some containers and off we headed to the restaurant to meet some friends. After enjoying a great meal, I brought out my own containers and wrapped up the food, which was to be lunch the next day. The best part about it is I could just leave it in that container and take it to work! The waitress seemed a bit confused but didn’t say anything about the meals my husband and I had packed up. Our friends did get their meals wrapped to go and their food came back packaged in a Styrofoam container and a plastic bag for each of their meals. The waitress also brought two plastic bags for our reusable takeout containers. It took some convincing and explaining but finally she realized that we didn’t want our containers in the plastic bags.

The key point we can take away from this experience is education and spreading the word to others. The useless waste of take out containers and plastic bags is out of control. Sure, it’s convenient, but convenience like this didn’t exist a hundred years ago, and that’s why landfill space is getting so crowded. In our busy, day to day activities, we almost never stop to realize the impact of what we are doing. While some people don’t understand the importance of preserving the world around us, others simply don’t know. It’s our job to start educating those people! The TakeOutWithOut website has been forwarded to all of my friends, family, customers and co-workers. This is an exciting idea and I am looking forward to encouraging more restaurants to participate. I think some people will be highly motivated to bring their own takeout containers if it means saving a few bucks, especially in this economy (be sure to check out the participating restaurants page on the TakeOutWithout website to see what I’m talking about).

Danielle Nihill is a Founding Consultant at Chartreuse Products (http://www.thegreenerearth.com) selling affordable reusable, organic, earth friendly products. She also blogs (http://ecogreenbags.blogspot.com) about current green issues and ways people can add a little green to their life!

Read more | Comments (1) | January 25th, 2010