TakeOutWithOut – Forgo the Food Packaging 
Written by dinesh • 5 comments.
I heard about this new campaign recently called TakeOutWithOut and decided this was a must share.
The Mission: Enabling people & restaurants to reduce restaurant waste by forgoing excess food packaging.
A few thoughts on why this is so sweet:
1) I don’t need 50 napkins every time I buy a burrito.
2) If I’m grabbing take out and going home, I don’t need a plastic (or even a biodegradable) fork. There’s no need to waste the fork and metal tastes better in my mouth anyway.
3) There’s a reason 6-packs were built with handles – that way you can carry them back to your house/car/apartment/bike? without the plastic bag.
4) I’m sick of the awkward stares I get from cashiers (even in San Francisco – heart of green) every time I refuse a bag, cutlery, napkins, condiments… the list goes on.
4b) I’m sorry to admit that some of these confused stares (or maybe just a ‘not wanting to deal them’ attitude) have been bad enough that I’ve actually taken the excess packaging… which is obviously the worst way to go.
So needless to say – go ToWo. I’m still dubious of the “glass straws” you’re pushing (I’m not a straw biter, but it just seems dangerous) – everything else I’m on board with though.
(ps – just because we’re helping businesses switch over to compostable food ware or other products, doesn’t mean it’s not important to reduce or reuse first. don’t forget that.)
Hey, I see you have linked to my Flickr photostream! Thought I would pop by and sing praises for TOWO and “glass straws”. The amount of restaurant waste we generate is ridiculous and totally unnecessary. It only takes a moment of thought to realize there are better alternatives out there, like refusing (Do I really need 10 ketchup packets?) or reusing (I have become accustomed to taking my own containers everywhere I go). As for glass straws… I often wonder why every drink ordered from a restaurant HAS to come with a straw? I half-way understand the fast food thing, but anyway… my glass straws ROCK! They come from Glass Dharma and are tough as nails. I carry a pack of four in my purse and they travel with me everywhere. I stow them in a pencil pouch (without any padding) and cram them in the bottom of my bag, then I proceed to stuff binders, notebooks, my laptop, wallet, Klean Kanteen and the kitchen sink on top of them. Haven’t had one break yet! If you are still wary of sipping from glass, stainless steel straws are also available (although they are harder to clean).
Cheers!
greeen sheeep
Ha – awesome. I’ll have to order 1 or 2 and give it a shot. I’m a guy (and don’t typically carry a man purse), so not sure where i’ll keep it just yet. Sounds durable enough to just throw in a pocket though.
Keep up the good work on the flickr stream. (i was tempted to throw your pic straight into the post, but thought that might be a bit aggressive…)
dinesh
Update – Tried out the glass straws… and kind of dig them :-)
[...] 6. Take-Out Savvy. When we take our food to go, we make sure to return any items we may not need such as brown paper bags, plastic bags, forks, and napkins. We like to think we make a small influence on people through leading by action. We recently wrote about a campaign called TakeOutWithOut–read more here. [...]
I have been able to eat at lots of fast food places without any waste, including McDonalds and A&W. I’ve been using my Starbucks cold cup with reusable straw. When I go to the pub I just get beer from the tap. No waste or need for a straw! :) When I heard about ToWo I was so excited. Other people are thinking like I am. Why do I need 5 napkins for one sandwich? I take pictures of my meals and then post them on my blog because a picture says a thousand words. I will probably not buy glass straws because I like drinking from the sides of cups most of the time and one of my made up “rules” when I do zero-waste fast food is that I bring containers I already own.
I agree with you – just because you can recycle something doesn’t mean you need to accept it in the first place!
~Stephanie