Reducing plastics comes with a price
Reducing plastics comes with a price
Restaurants grapple with rising costs as single-use plastic bans tighten across New York state.
With a smile, a “thank you” and a slight bow, Amy Gong handed over a white plastic bag containing three plastic food containers to a delivery driver. Gong runs the Red Chili Restaurant in Syracuse, which serves Szechuan cuisine, dim sum and bubble tea. Despite New York state’s 2020 ban on plastic bags, her restaurant still uses both paper and plastic bags.
“Those delivery drivers won’t even take the food if we don’t offer plastic bags,” Gong said. “We used to have that kind of paper bag, but they said it was unsafe. They said if it rains then everything will be wet. They asked us for plastic bags.”
Currently, New York and 11 other states have adopted the 2020 plastic bag bans, banning the use of single-use plastic carry-out bags with only limited exceptions. On July 19, the Biden administration announced that the government would gradually phase out the use of single-use plastics and implement tougher regulations on plastic manufacturing. This could lead to less pollution and lower trash processing costs, but it also means restaurants in New York state would find it even more difficult to buy plastic products like plastic straws, utensils and food containers. And, customers might not only find fewer plastic products at local restaurants but also see an increase in the price of their food.
A 2019 report estimated that plastics make up 17.2% of Onondaga County’s municipal solid waste, and the estimated composition of plastics in industrial, commercial and institutional waste is 22.2% according to Tammy Palmer, the public information officer of the Onondaga County Resource Recovery Agency.
Excessive use of plastics makes it harder for people to recycle because they don’t always know what is recyclable. In Onondaga County, plastics are recycled by shape. Companies that recycle products want containers like plastic bottles and jars, but not other plastic shapes like takeout containers. “They cannot be combined with other recyclables because they get too dirty, create litter on a windy day and wrap around machines that sort recyclables, causing shutdowns and contamination,” Palmer wrote in an email.
If non-recyclable plastics contaminate loads of good recyclables by being placed in the recycling bin, buyers in the recycling market may reject them or reduce their market price. “Counties with consistently high levels of contamination risk losing market opportunities,” wrote Palmer. “If you can’t market your recyclables, they won’t get recycled.”
“If the local use of plastics drops further, consumers are more likely to recycle correctly because of fewer types of plastics to sort through”, explained Palmer.
In addition, the reduction may bring financial benefits. “Processing trash and maintaining trash facilities requires large financial investments,” wrote Palmer. “Anything you can remove from the waste stream, plastic included, has the potential to ease that financial burden.”
As for the environment, less production of plastics can help reduce the emission of greenhouse gasses and also means that the county won’t have to operate a landfill to process excessive trash – unless the amount of waste begins to exceed processing limits.
“Overall, less plastic trash in the system would reduce the amount of waste we have to process in Onondaga County at the Waste-to-Energy (WTE) Facility. We do not operate a landfill in Onondaga County, but exceeding what can be processed at the WTE Facility would require hauling trash to a regional landfill,” Palmer explained.
Despite all the benefits further reducing single-use plastics can bring, local restaurant owners and customers might face more immediate negative impacts. Eiving Li, the owner of the local restaurant Poke Fish, estimated that paper bags cost at least three to five times more than plastic bags. Because Poke Fish is located near Syracuse University, Li said the restaurant uses more than 300 paper bags every day during school semesters.
Although Poke Fish stopped using plastic bags, it still offers plastic containers and utensils to customers. Li said that shifting to paper products would at least double their cost, but it might be inevitable following the presidential election this fall. “Some places are already using wooden utensils. No one is talking about this kind of containers yet, but it might be the overall trend no matter who wins the election,” he said. “Because it’s not a federal thing. It’s more of a regional thing.”
But, Li isn’t too worried about the potential increase in the cost. “To be honest, if in the end all of them increase, it is still the customers who pay for it,” he said. “Every business is the same, no matter if it’s McDonald’s or Chipotle.”
At Red Chili Restaurant, Gong worries about losing access to plastic products in the future. “There was a period when there was completely nowhere to buy plastic straws, so we bought paper straws,” she said. “They don’t work well, are expensive, and customers don’t even like them. Paper ones can’t be used at all.”
Because Gong couldn’t find suppliers nearby, she had to import all the plastic products the restaurant uses from China, increasing costs for the business.
Despite that, Gong was hesitant about raising her selling price. “It is impossible, say, today I bought cucumbers for $50 per box and usually it is $5 per box, it is impossible that I raise the price for customers immediately,” she said. “But if the cost stays high and others are raising their price, then we have no choice but to raise the price as well.”
Banning the use of plastic products is likely to be beneficial for Onondaga County and its residents in various ways. However, people might also find a more immediate negative impact on their lives, as local restaurants are considering raising prices due to the increasing costs resulting from the ban.
is a contributor for The NewsHouse