Whether you’re leading the reusable-laden charge toward reducing your food-serving business’ waste footprint or dizzily navigating the array of complexity when it comes to properly disposing of your recycling and compost – and even defining exactly what is recyclable and compostable in Marin – one thing is clear: change is gonna come.
At the latest Zero Waste Marin forum hosted by the City of Mill Valley and the Mill Valley Chamber, experts in the field provided an array of information about the County of Marin’s proposed Reusable Foodware regulations that would require the use of reusable and compostable foodware materials (e.g., plates, bowls, cups, utensils, and trays) at restaurants, grocery stores and delis, bakeries, carry-out, mini marts, farmers markets, food trucks, and other businesses requiring a health permit.
The Draft Ordinance, whose primary goal is reducing Marin’s greenhouse gas emissions and the amount of waste going into our landfills, prohibits the use of single-use plastic foodware items and proposes a 25-cent charge for disposable cups. If approved by the Marin County Board of Supervisors this summer, it would be “operative and enforced” one year later – approximately mid-2021 – to allow restaurants and food-serving businesses time to use up non-compliant products like straws, plastic containers and bioplastic products promoted as compostable but not accepted as compostable products at Marin County’s Redwood Landfill. The delayed enforcement would also allow food-serving businesses time to identify and source new compliant reusable and compostable foodware.
The forum also touched on the alphabet soup’s worth of state laws affecting how all businesses manage their waste, including SB 1383, which requires statewide diversion of compostable materials from the landfill by 50 percent by 2020 and 75 percent by 2025, as well as mandatory waste sorting into the appropriate (blue, green and brown) carts in both the back of the house and customer-facing front of the house.
Danielle Staude, the City of Mill Valley’s senior planner and sustainability coordinator, provided the appropriate context at the outset. “You might have thought you were in the food business, but you are also in the waste business,” she said. “Your input is important to us.”
Staude was scheduled to present the ordinance and the feedback on it to City Council on March 16 at 7pm at City Hall, but that hearing has been postponed due to the Coronavirus and social distancing concerns. Staude was joined at the March 10th event by Zero Waste consultant Debra Kaufman and Lisa Coelho of SCS Engineers, the latter of whom is able to provide Mill Valley businesses with a free waste assessment and help identify an action plan to comply (email us and we’ll put you in touch).
Kaufman couched the proposed ordinance as the logical next step after the plastic shopping bag ban in Marin nearly a decade ago as a template for a transition to behavior that once seemed impossible but now is common.
“Now communities want to go beyond bags,” she said.
The trio were peppered with pragmatic questions by forum attendees, who included representatives from Mill Valley Market, Equator Coffees, McDonald’s, Juice Girl, Bungalow 44, BOL, Playa, Buckeye Roadhouse, CineArts Sequoia Theatre, Flour Craft Bakery and more, peppered the experts with pragmatic questions about transition to reusable and truly compostable products.
Business owners had questions about how the use of such products, particularly reusables, would comply with the county’s Environmental Health Services division. For instance, if a customer brings in a reusable cup or bowl, the business person is using subjectivity to decide if a cup is clean.
“The health department has been a partner in all of this, and they are fully aware of this aspect,” Kaufman said. “The health department will be the ones out there doing the enforcement but thy want to be consistent with the new state law.”
Mill Valley Market co-owner Doug Canepa questioned why state or county governments aren’t levying fees against the manufacturers of products like disposable bags and foodware products instead of of putting the responsibility on the shoulders of retailers and restaurants.
“This is where we’re at,” Kaufman replied. “Local governments are looking at things that they have control over.”
Peter Schumacher of Real Restaurants, which Includes Bungalow 44, Playa and Buckeye Roadhouse, emphasized his industry's overall support for the transition but called the need to educate the consumer on the product transition as paramount.
"Customers constantly demand those extra things when get their food to go, having it go into multiple separate boxes and placed in a bag," Schumacher said. "Consumer education is an extremely important part of this process."
Flour Craft Bakery co-owner Rick Perko raised a point about the compliant products that sparked a lengthy conversation: the current roster of available products would require the use of paper/fiber-based to-go containers for things like salads. Those products would not allow for visibility of the salad itself, for instance, prior to purchase, as current plastic containers do.
“Customers want to see what they’re buying,” he said, suggesting that the ideological cart was getting a bit ahead of the practical horse. “If they can’t see it, they’ll be less likely to purchase it. That’s going pretty far to expect the customer to adjust to that.”
“I don’t have an answer for you but will bring that as feedback,” Kaufman replied.
Here's a list of foodware products that would comply with the proposed ordinance.
Click on the images below to see descriptions and illustrations of products that are approved and not approved under the proposed ordinance.
At the latest Zero Waste Marin forum hosted by the City of Mill Valley and the Mill Valley Chamber, experts in the field provided an array of information about the County of Marin’s proposed Reusable Foodware regulations that would require the use of reusable and compostable foodware materials (e.g., plates, bowls, cups, utensils, and trays) at restaurants, grocery stores and delis, bakeries, carry-out, mini marts, farmers markets, food trucks, and other businesses requiring a health permit.
The Draft Ordinance, whose primary goal is reducing Marin’s greenhouse gas emissions and the amount of waste going into our landfills, prohibits the use of single-use plastic foodware items and proposes a 25-cent charge for disposable cups. If approved by the Marin County Board of Supervisors this summer, it would be “operative and enforced” one year later – approximately mid-2021 – to allow restaurants and food-serving businesses time to use up non-compliant products like straws, plastic containers and bioplastic products promoted as compostable but not accepted as compostable products at Marin County’s Redwood Landfill. The delayed enforcement would also allow food-serving businesses time to identify and source new compliant reusable and compostable foodware.
The forum also touched on the alphabet soup’s worth of state laws affecting how all businesses manage their waste, including SB 1383, which requires statewide diversion of compostable materials from the landfill by 50 percent by 2020 and 75 percent by 2025, as well as mandatory waste sorting into the appropriate (blue, green and brown) carts in both the back of the house and customer-facing front of the house.
Danielle Staude, the City of Mill Valley’s senior planner and sustainability coordinator, provided the appropriate context at the outset. “You might have thought you were in the food business, but you are also in the waste business,” she said. “Your input is important to us.”
Staude was scheduled to present the ordinance and the feedback on it to City Council on March 16 at 7pm at City Hall, but that hearing has been postponed due to the Coronavirus and social distancing concerns. Staude was joined at the March 10th event by Zero Waste consultant Debra Kaufman and Lisa Coelho of SCS Engineers, the latter of whom is able to provide Mill Valley businesses with a free waste assessment and help identify an action plan to comply (email us and we’ll put you in touch).
Kaufman couched the proposed ordinance as the logical next step after the plastic shopping bag ban in Marin nearly a decade ago as a template for a transition to behavior that once seemed impossible but now is common.
“Now communities want to go beyond bags,” she said.
The trio were peppered with pragmatic questions by forum attendees, who included representatives from Mill Valley Market, Equator Coffees, McDonald’s, Juice Girl, Bungalow 44, BOL, Playa, Buckeye Roadhouse, CineArts Sequoia Theatre, Flour Craft Bakery and more, peppered the experts with pragmatic questions about transition to reusable and truly compostable products.
Business owners had questions about how the use of such products, particularly reusables, would comply with the county’s Environmental Health Services division. For instance, if a customer brings in a reusable cup or bowl, the business person is using subjectivity to decide if a cup is clean.
“The health department has been a partner in all of this, and they are fully aware of this aspect,” Kaufman said. “The health department will be the ones out there doing the enforcement but thy want to be consistent with the new state law.”
Mill Valley Market co-owner Doug Canepa questioned why state or county governments aren’t levying fees against the manufacturers of products like disposable bags and foodware products instead of of putting the responsibility on the shoulders of retailers and restaurants.
“This is where we’re at,” Kaufman replied. “Local governments are looking at things that they have control over.”
Peter Schumacher of Real Restaurants, which Includes Bungalow 44, Playa and Buckeye Roadhouse, emphasized his industry's overall support for the transition but called the need to educate the consumer on the product transition as paramount.
"Customers constantly demand those extra things when get their food to go, having it go into multiple separate boxes and placed in a bag," Schumacher said. "Consumer education is an extremely important part of this process."
Flour Craft Bakery co-owner Rick Perko raised a point about the compliant products that sparked a lengthy conversation: the current roster of available products would require the use of paper/fiber-based to-go containers for things like salads. Those products would not allow for visibility of the salad itself, for instance, prior to purchase, as current plastic containers do.
“Customers want to see what they’re buying,” he said, suggesting that the ideological cart was getting a bit ahead of the practical horse. “If they can’t see it, they’ll be less likely to purchase it. That’s going pretty far to expect the customer to adjust to that.”
“I don’t have an answer for you but will bring that as feedback,” Kaufman replied.
Here's a list of foodware products that would comply with the proposed ordinance.
Click on the images below to see descriptions and illustrations of products that are approved and not approved under the proposed ordinance.
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Officials emphasized the distinction between the refuse haulers at Mill Valley Refuse Service and Waste Management’s Redwood Landfill, which dictates what it will and won’t accept at its facility.
Bioplastics, once seen as a longer-term answer and a bridge to an eventual transition to reusables, was “a great idea but none of them have seemed to work for the composting processors to break down in the time that they need,” Kaufman said. “None of them would be allowed – it would just be contamination.”
If adopted by supervisors, the new regulations would apply to all food-serving businesses within unincorporated Marin, with subsequent approvals required from each municipality’s city council.
Kaufman mentioned one exemption within the proposed ordinance that would incite businesses to move production and packaging outside of Marin, as “entities packaging prepared foods outside the county might be exempt,” she said.
As the event concluded, Chelsea Hutchison, owner of the BŌL superfood cafe in the Mill Valley Lumber Yard, sought to remind everyone in the room about the larger ideological goal.
Hutchison said her Plastic-Free Fridays program, which procures a $2 deposit on mason jars and reusable bowls from customers, and provides a 50-cent discount to those bringing in their own reusable cups and a $1 discount for those who bring in reusable bowls. The program has generated “incredible customer feedback,” she said, and has made people “motivated and excited” to do their part.
“It starts a conversation and education is happening,” she said. “This is our planet and these are our kids. This ordinance is really something that is going to benefit our planet.”
The 411: The County of Marin has proposed Reusable Foodware regulations. And here's a list of foodware products that would comply with the proposed ordinance.
Bioplastics, once seen as a longer-term answer and a bridge to an eventual transition to reusables, was “a great idea but none of them have seemed to work for the composting processors to break down in the time that they need,” Kaufman said. “None of them would be allowed – it would just be contamination.”
If adopted by supervisors, the new regulations would apply to all food-serving businesses within unincorporated Marin, with subsequent approvals required from each municipality’s city council.
Kaufman mentioned one exemption within the proposed ordinance that would incite businesses to move production and packaging outside of Marin, as “entities packaging prepared foods outside the county might be exempt,” she said.
As the event concluded, Chelsea Hutchison, owner of the BŌL superfood cafe in the Mill Valley Lumber Yard, sought to remind everyone in the room about the larger ideological goal.
Hutchison said her Plastic-Free Fridays program, which procures a $2 deposit on mason jars and reusable bowls from customers, and provides a 50-cent discount to those bringing in their own reusable cups and a $1 discount for those who bring in reusable bowls. The program has generated “incredible customer feedback,” she said, and has made people “motivated and excited” to do their part.
“It starts a conversation and education is happening,” she said. “This is our planet and these are our kids. This ordinance is really something that is going to benefit our planet.”
The 411: The County of Marin has proposed Reusable Foodware regulations. And here's a list of foodware products that would comply with the proposed ordinance.