The vast majority of people in the United States are home complying with the recent shelter-in-place orders. The streets are empty. The grocery stores’ shelves are bare. Kids are home from school. This is all due to the rapid spread of the Coronavirus Disease, (COVID-19), a respiratory illness that is spread from person to person. While the first case of the virus was recorded in Wuhan, China, the U.S. has the highest number of recorded cases globally. In the U.S. alone, as of April 20, 2020, there are currently over 746,625 reported cases of COVID-19 and a reported 39,083 deaths resulting from the virus.

In early January of 2020, the Secretary of Health and Human Services declared COVID-19 a public health emergency. Following suit, in an effort to halt the spread of the deadly respiratory virus, the current presidential administration declared the COVID-19 outbreak a national emergency beginning March 1, 2020. A secondary purpose for declaring a national emergency was gaining access to $50 billion dollars of federal aid to help states fight against COVID-19. While the primary concern of the COVID-19 national emergency is health related, the adverse environmental impacts can be mitigated. Some of the environmental impacts of COVID-19 range from restaurants no longer accepting reusable containers to smaller municipalities halting recycling programs to reduce the risk of spreading the virus.

COVID-19 & Carryout

States and cities across the United States have issued mandatory shelter-in-place orders, telling residents to stay home and only leave for essential services like visits to grocery stores, pharmacies, gas stations, and doctors’ offices. In addition to many businesses, stay-home mandates have also shut down schools. In California, there is no specific end date to the stay at home order issued by Governor Newsom. While some sources are claiming the environment is improving from the issuance of stay-at-home orders, the issuance of stay-at-home orders are not without impacts to the economy and the environment.

One of the significant impacts of the mandated shelter-in-place orders across the United States is that the restaurant industry is suffering dramatically. The ordinary course of business, such as having dine-in customers, is precluded by the city and state-wide orders in an effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Ordering restaurants to close their doors to customers is reasonable given the rapid spike in COVID-19 cases and the direct contact in close indoor spaces such as restaurants.

Sixty percent of restaurants fail within their first year and 80 percent fail within their first five years. Some of the reasons contributing to the failure of restaurants is the location of the business, workforce turnover rates, and technology. However, since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, consumers dining at sit down restaurants declined 85.2 percent, dropping  52.3 percent in 11 days. It is clear restaurant businesses are suffering from a substantial economic hardship. As a result, and in an effort to minimize the economic impact of COVID-19 and comply with the mandatory shelter-in-place orders, restaurants have resorted to the only option of retaining customers: carryout and delivery. Restaurant businesses are even offering incentives to consumers such as discounts and free delivery in order to generate revenue. As a result, customers are ordering carryout and data illustrates a spike in grocery app downloads.

How Does Carryout Impact the Environment?

While carryout enables restaurants to maintain a reduced stream of income amidst the COVID-19 crisis, the incidental adverse effects of carryout is unduly placed on the environment, particularly with regard to non-reusable food containers. The environmental impact of carryout during COVID-19 does not simply begin when the consumer purchases their food from a restaurant. Rather, the environmental impacts of carryout containers during COVID-19 is galvanized. The impact of carryout containers begins during production of the containers, distribution to restaurants, delivery to customers, and does not end until and unless the containers are properly disposed of and their use is maximized.

The primary environmental impact of non-reusable food containers is waste generation. A 2018 study estimated that there are 2,025 million carryout containers per year in the European Union alone. The use of takeaway containers increases greenhouse gas emissions if they are not disposed of properly. Some of the additional adverse environmental impacts include low recyclability, climate change, marine ecotoxicity, and depletion of natural resources.

In order to understand the adverse effect of carryout containers on the environment during COVID-19, first consider the three most commonly used carryout food containers: Aluminum, Polypropylene (clear plastic), and Polystyrene (Styrofoam).

Past research studies estimate that 7.5 billion Styrofoam containers are used annually in the United States. This estimation does not include the projected use of Styrofoam containers during a world crisis such as COVID-19. However, relative to Polypropylene and Aluminum, Styrofoam has the lowest environmental impact overall. The lower environmental impact associated with Styrofoam is due to the decreased material and electricity requirements during production.

Despite lower environmental impacts in early stages of its lifecycle, the increased use of Styrofoam carryout containers during COVID-19 is potentially harmful to the environment because when Styrofoam is not properly recycled, the waste can end up in a landfill. If not in a landfill, “because they are so light, the Styrofoam containers can be easily blown away, contributing to urban and marine litter.” For example, according to Gallego-Schmid et al. (at 422),  92 percent of the micro plastic collected on 25 beaches of Hong Kong’s coastline was Styrofoam. Not only does the improper disposal of Styrofoam lead to toxic environmental waste, but it also threatens and harms the marine life. For these reasons, even with its lower environmental impacts relative to other containers, Styrofoam is not a sustainable packaging option without larger scale recycling.

According to research, Aluminum containers “lead to the highest environmental impacts on the ozone layer as well as human, marine and terrestrial toxicities.” Additionally, a recent study found that Aluminum containers have a 50 percent higher carbon footprint on the environment than Styrofoam. However, both Aluminum and Styrofoam cannot be easily cleaned and therefore, are not generally reusable, which contributes to their waste capacity. Interestingly though, the main contributors of Aluminum’s adverse impact on the environment is the process of production. The generation of electricity to extract and refine Aluminum, as well as the emission of carbon monoxide, hydrogen fluoride, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon, and heavy metals, are some of the causes of environmental harm by Aluminum production and ultimately use.

Single-use Polypropylene containers are the worst option to choose of the three because of the adverse impacts on environment. Research demonstrates that Polypropylene containers have to be reused 3-208 times to have lower impacts than Styrofoam. Moreover, as compared to Styrofoam, Polypropylene is 6-25 percent worse on the environment.  However, if Polypropylene was recycled at a higher rate, specifically 55 percent more than it currently is, then its impacts would be reduced.

Call to Action for Consumers and Restaurant Owners

What can you do as a consumer to reduce the negative impacts of carryout containers on the environment during the COVID-19 shelter-in-place and after?

REDUCE. RE-USE. RECYCLE.

If you can, and the restaurant permits, reduce waste by taking your own reusable cups and containers. Some restaurants offer incentives such as discounts for customers who do so. Consumers can reduce the environmental impacts of food packaging by reusing the food containers for as long as possible. The longer food containers are reused, the lower their impacts become overtime.

Know that because carryout containers like Styrofoam are contaminated and degraded during transportation and sorting, Styrofoam is not accepted in your curbside recycling. On the other hand, plastic packaging can be recycled. Although plastic carryout containers can be recycled and are sanitized at the processing facilities, it is recommended that you rinse your containers before recycling. To take it a step further, while plastic grocery bags cannot be recycled, you can and should recycle any paper bags that contain your food boxes during COVID-19 and beyond.

According to studies pertaining to recycling sustainable packaging, if half of the containers currently in use were recycled, the carbon footprint would be reduced by one-third, which is reportedly equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions generated annually by 55,000 cars.

Most importantly, before you dispose of any carryout containers during the COVID-19 take-out only mandates, you should research your city’s local recycling plan and guidelines. Researching your local guidelines will assist you with deciphering how to dispose of low recyclability carryout containers like Styrofoam.

What can you do as a restaurant owner to reduce the negative impacts of carryout containers on the environment during the COVID-19 shelter-in-place and after?

Restaurant owners undoubtedly are enduring an undue economic burden due to COVID-19.  However, restaurants still have a duty to comply with federal, state, and local legislation regulating the packaging industry. Complying with regulations not only ensures the safety of consumers who purchase carryout from the restaurants, but also reduces the adverse environmental impacts of disposal and waste of carryout containers.

Some of the current state and federal regulations that affect the packaging industry serve different purposes. For example, the Office of Food Additive Safety and the Center for Food and Safety and Applied Nutrition regulate the safety of packaging materials like plastics, coatings, papers, food colorants, and adhesives. In regards to the environmental concerns, the Environmental Policy Act requires the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act agency to evaluate the packing materials used and disposal. In addition to the federal and state regulations pertaining to packaging and containers used for takeout, there are hundreds of local city ordinances that restaurants must comply with. To ensure that a restaurant is utilizing the safest carryout containers for the environment, with the highest recyclability, it is critical that restaurant owners examine the regulations such as the ones mentioned above, as well as applicable local ordinances.

Restaurant owners have the autonomy to choose which carryout containers their business will use, so long as the product complies with the current regulations. In turn, restaurant owners can decrease waste and environmental harm by choosing to use carryout containers that can be used more than once or recycled immediately after use, unlike Styrofoam. Some of the more sustainable carryout containers are plant-based compostable and bio-plastic containers. While offering incentives for customers who reuse their cups and containers, such as discounts, is not a feasible alternative for all businesses during the COVID-19 crisis, incentives such as discounts can be offered on a larger scale once the shelter-in-place is over.

It is an ongoing concern as to when the COVID-19 crisis will end and when shelter-in-place mandates will be lifted. However, it is almost certain that the crisis will not last forever, while the impact of carryout during COVID-19 will have an everlasting impact on our environment. Because the environmental impacts of carryout containers will continue to transpire whether or not the shelter-in-place remains effective, it is critical for everyone to research how they can reduce, reuse, and recycle in their local cities and states. Cultivating stronger recycling habits during COVID-19 will serve environmental issues in the future.

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