Pretty soon there will be a company delivering on regular, reusable plates. There will be a refund given if the plate is returned to the driver on the next delivery. (Thus encouraging a second delivery...) Higher refund if the plate is washed.
I feel like this could be an Onion article today, start-up in a year.
Or they just scoop out food onto your home plate. Like an on-demand food moped that has buffet sized compartments - that stay fresh for a couple of hours so the driver doesn't have to return to the shop as often. Hmm, anyone in the food business need some more ideas?
I've been thinking about this and it would be good if there was a 3rd party that provided standard sized, good quality re-usable containers to restaurants. If you want to buy food from the restaurant you need an account with this new container company. When you buy food from a restaurant, if you don't have enough credit with the container company, the cost of a container is added to your order (something like $10 so that de-incentivises people to bin it after use). There would need to be a lot of drop off locations for used containers, if they were standard sized they could probably be washed automatically by machines to be returned to restaurants. Each container would be uniquely identifiable and your account would be credited a drop-off.
This would only work if a local government put restrictions in place banning single use plastics at restaurants. I don't think cutlery is necessary in most cases, especially for home delivery.. you can use your own cutlery people.
Asking customers to wash plates for your business sounds like a food safety violation waiting to happen. I'd skip that part.
Also be sure to either make the reusable utensils/plates very visually unappealing or factor their cost into the delivery; if you provide them as any sort of loss-leader you may find yourself as much a provider of inexpensive tableware as you are a provider of food.
Personally only seen it once during a short trip but apparently this is common in Seoul (maybe someone can confirm if it’s really widespread or not?). Delivery food comes in reusable containers, you leave it outside your door when you’re done and at some point the next day it all gets collected and sent back to the original restaurant for cleaning and reuse.
I guess the food-delivery industry could use some disruption. The plates would be cheap bento-boxes for easy stacking, possibly with some kind barcode for keeping track of them. The most benefit would come from groups of restaurants who work together to implement the same system and allow a more dynamic handling of the boxes.
That would only fly in China if there were some hard to fake signifier of cleanliness. You already see old ladies rinsing ceramic dishware in gutter water and shrinkwrapping them for reuse, where shrinkwrap signifies the plate "is" clean
I keep thinking that the next big revolution in food sales will be reusable, washable containers.
Use glass instead of plastic so they're safe for industrial washers, make them in a variety of sizes such as tall narrow ones for sauces and beverages and squat and wide ones for casseroles and soups. Tight lids for safe storage and transportation. Standardized sizes for easy reuse and transferability.
In Chinese university cafeterias, you had to pay 1, 2, or 5 mao (I don’t remember the exact amount, this was 15 years ago, probably more now anyways) if you don’t bring your own food container to hold the food you get.
Perhaps permanent containers could be used for food delivery charges on a deposit basis (pay money for them, get it back when they are returned, perhaps sent back on a future delivery).
The economic incentive needs to be large enough to matter.
When we order food deliveries, there's usually an option to specify how many set of utensils we want. We specify zero. If there's no option, we write something similar in the 'notes' section.
These instructions are almost always ignored. I guess it's cheaper for them to add utensils in every order, than to spend time to read the specifics of each order.
I actually just go eat at restaurants because of this. It's pretty bad as a society when going out to eat food has become difficult for some people. Really, ordering delivery is not much else besides pure laziness.
Maybe in the case you're sick or something, sure, but for most cases going to a restaurant isn't that difficult.
Eating at restaurants all the time might be something many Americans can afford to do, but it’s not normal for the rest of the world. I’m in the UK and tend to eat out about once a week as a treat. That’s on the “doing well” end of things.
In this vein, are there any company's currently selling viable compostable/biodegradable plastics? I know there is a big drive for straws, but packaging of fruit, vegetables (and food) is an important target as well.
Many of them, but it is like 10x more expensive than regular one used today. Biodegradable plastic is an old thing, just too expensive for us. It’s cheaper to dump European garbage in Asia with explanation “they bought it from us”. I am just shaking my head when reading article about German apple bags from the Asian beaches. We are even forced here to sort our waste. Funny thing is that bio waste goes to these expensive biodegradable bags. And then German apple bags and all other clean(!) plastic waste go to separate bag that apparently is recycled.
> In this vein, are there any company's currently selling viable compostable/biodegradable plastics?
That will increase the cost by an unignorable margin and even that, some biodegradable plastics still take a long time (a year or even years) to be gradated.
This is the reason of why things like reusable plates etc is currently the best way to go. That is, when those reusable items actually gets returned.
I'm pretty sure the cardboard boxes you are thinking of have a layer of plastic on them. The only cardboard boxes I've seen from to go places without any plastic turn soggy within 30 minutes or so even without anything liquid in them (just a poke bowl).
Perhaps you should read the article? It's not about the cost, the restaurants don't want to risk a bad review and would rather wrap everything in one more layer of plastic. And not sure if you're aware but people from developing countries generally care less about being environmentally friendly than in devekoped countries.
In the UK, takeaways used to pretty much universally deliver in soft, perhaps tin or aluminium, containers with cardboard lids. Around 10-15 years ago, restaurants started switching to plastic. Some still use the old-style containers. If those are more ecologically sound, perhaps the government here should ban the plastic ones.
I was thinking, is it not possible to have all garbage be filtered for plastic, not plastic before after it is collected.
This way you don’t put the burden on the people trying to ‘sort’ plastic from non plastic. Let the machine do it with some mix of computer vision or some other sensors. I wish to work on a startup like this because I feel this is something that must be done if not done already.
This was the worst offender, according to research published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology. It carries up to 1.5 million tonnes of plastic into the sea every year. In contrast, the Thames puts 18 tonnes of plastic into the ocean.
Yellow River, China
After the Yangtze and the Yenisei, this is the third-longest river in Asia - and the sixth-longest river system in the world. It flows through nine provinces before emptying into the Bohai Sea.
Hai he River, China
This waterway connects Beijing to Tianjin and the Bohai Sea. Its annual flow is only one-thirtieth the Yangtze's, and half that of the Yellow River.
China imported half the worlds plastic waste until 2017. No one in the west who sells it to them has any illusions about where it goes.. since China placed an import ban on it, undoubtedly they will sell it to someone else who does the same thing or pollute the water themselves. Its awfully convenient to pay someone else to do the dirty work and then turn your nose up at them.
[+] [-] symplee|6 years ago|reply
I feel like this could be an Onion article today, start-up in a year.
Or they just scoop out food onto your home plate. Like an on-demand food moped that has buffet sized compartments - that stay fresh for a couple of hours so the driver doesn't have to return to the shop as often. Hmm, anyone in the food business need some more ideas?
[+] [-] tren|6 years ago|reply
This would only work if a local government put restrictions in place banning single use plastics at restaurants. I don't think cutlery is necessary in most cases, especially for home delivery.. you can use your own cutlery people.
[+] [-] rohit2412|6 years ago|reply
That's very similar
[+] [-] RodgerTheGreat|6 years ago|reply
Also be sure to either make the reusable utensils/plates very visually unappealing or factor their cost into the delivery; if you provide them as any sort of loss-leader you may find yourself as much a provider of inexpensive tableware as you are a provider of food.
[+] [-] karthikb|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dgzl|6 years ago|reply
Has anyone's grandparents used Schwan's?
[+] [-] xkcd-sucks|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Pxtl|6 years ago|reply
Use glass instead of plastic so they're safe for industrial washers, make them in a variety of sizes such as tall narrow ones for sauces and beverages and squat and wide ones for casseroles and soups. Tight lids for safe storage and transportation. Standardized sizes for easy reuse and transferability.
We can call them "mason jars".
[+] [-] seanmcdirmid|6 years ago|reply
Perhaps permanent containers could be used for food delivery charges on a deposit basis (pay money for them, get it back when they are returned, perhaps sent back on a future delivery).
[+] [-] NeedMoreTea|6 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiffin_carrier
[+] [-] rahimnathwani|6 years ago|reply
When we order food deliveries, there's usually an option to specify how many set of utensils we want. We specify zero. If there's no option, we write something similar in the 'notes' section.
These instructions are almost always ignored. I guess it's cheaper for them to add utensils in every order, than to spend time to read the specifics of each order.
[+] [-] bamboozled|6 years ago|reply
Maybe in the case you're sick or something, sure, but for most cases going to a restaurant isn't that difficult.
[+] [-] dcsilver|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ThePadawan|6 years ago|reply
The higher the cost of labour, the higher the multiplier is for going to a restaurant.
e.g. (my local prices): * frozen pizza (ham): ~1.50-3.00 CHF * fridge-ready pizza (ham): ~6-8 CHF * Domino's: ~13-16 CHF * local Italian eatery (no table service): ~14-18 CHF * Restaurant: ~13-30 CHF
[+] [-] officeplant|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] temp99990|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seanmcdirmid|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikorym|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lnsru|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rqs|6 years ago|reply
That will increase the cost by an unignorable margin and even that, some biodegradable plastics still take a long time (a year or even years) to be gradated.
This is the reason of why things like reusable plates etc is currently the best way to go. That is, when those reusable items actually gets returned.
[+] [-] 8bitsrule|6 years ago|reply
They may cost a little more. Is this another example of leave a mess behind for the future to pay for?
[+] [-] sushid|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smt88|6 years ago|reply
So you do get it.
[+] [-] Tempest1981|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ramraj07|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bencollier49|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nikivi|6 years ago|reply
This way you don’t put the burden on the people trying to ‘sort’ plastic from non plastic. Let the machine do it with some mix of computer vision or some other sensors. I wish to work on a startup like this because I feel this is something that must be done if not done already.
[+] [-] kangoo1707|6 years ago|reply
At least more delivery = less traffic, less polution
[+] [-] diveanon|6 years ago|reply
Only 10% of all plastic is recycled.
More delivery means less people cooking for themselves at home, which means more traffic and pollution.
[+] [-] hbarka|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hourislate|6 years ago|reply
China has at least 3-6 of 10 rivers that carry 90% of plastic polluting the Oceans.
https://news.sky.com/story/just-10-rivers-carry-90-of-plasti...
From the article:
Yangtze River, China
This was the worst offender, according to research published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology. It carries up to 1.5 million tonnes of plastic into the sea every year. In contrast, the Thames puts 18 tonnes of plastic into the ocean.
Yellow River, China
After the Yangtze and the Yenisei, this is the third-longest river in Asia - and the sixth-longest river system in the world. It flows through nine provinces before emptying into the Bohai Sea.
Hai he River, China
This waterway connects Beijing to Tianjin and the Bohai Sea. Its annual flow is only one-thirtieth the Yangtze's, and half that of the Yellow River.
Out of control......
[+] [-] zaptheimpaler|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shard972|6 years ago|reply
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