Takeout SUDs Make Up 50% of California Litter

We want it and we want it now.

Whether its quicky California roll or a pad thai to go, a healthy salad or a greasy burger, we depend on takeout to stay nourished as we go about our busy lives. We depend on it because we’re a fast-moving society and sometimes we’re tired when we get home and can’t pack a lunch. And sometimes pb&j just won’t cut it.

The problem with takeout isn’t how we take it out, the problem is that we take it out in SUDs made from mostly from materials that will last almost 9 million times longer than its useful life.* 

Problems with takeout containers abound, and it’s a subject we’ll no doubt return to again and again. For starters, though, we’ve got something small to chew on from Triple Pundit. Clean Water Action (CWA) analyzed the waste on California streets and determined that 50% (half!) of all litter was from fast food waste. So we’re talkin’ your chicken teriyaki bowls and your Mickey D’s forks.

And we’re talkin’ about how SUDs at lunchtime are not only wasteful but we (as a society) feel compelled to throw them on the ground instead of disposing them in say, a trash can.

*(1 hour for lunch * 1,000 years for the average life of a plastic SUD = about 9 million hours)