Just Salad’s Zero-Waste Roadmap
Our Reusable Bowl was ahead of its time when launched in 2006. Now, we’re working harder than ever to pioneer a zero-waste dining experience.
What’s one material that infiltrates our food and water, kills animals, contributes to greenhouse gas emissions, and spends more time in landfills than anywhere else?
Single-use plastic.
From disposable utensils to food packaging, single-use plastic is a problem. Only 9% of all plastic ever produced has been recycled, and 5 trillion pieces of it are floating in the world’s oceans. Most plastic is made from fossil fuels and never goes away. Globally, we’re producing and consuming it faster than our recycling infrastructure can handle.
As Chief Sustainability Officer at Just Salad, I’m passionate about eliminating single-use plastic and promoting reusable food and beverage containers within the fast-casual dining industry.
Fortunately, I have a head start: Just Salad has been a huge advocate for reuse since our founding in 2006, with its signature Reusable Bowl.
Today, about 30% of Just Salad’s in-store guests bring in Reusable Bowls, making it the largest reusable program offered by a restaurant chain. If stacked vertically, the plastic diverted from landfill by our bowl-toting customers last year would reach the height of 140 Empire State Buildings. It is for this reason that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has recognized Just Salad with a Waste Wise award.
The Reusable Bowl is Just the Beginning
The Reusable Bowl is the reason that I became a Just Salad superfan in the first place. Americans use 15 million tons of disposable plastic containers a year, including food packaging like clamshells, water bottles, caps and lids. Only 7% of this material is recycled, and the majority is landfilled, according to EPA data.
Troubled by these statistics, I started an organization called Zero Waste NYC earlier this year to connect New Yorkers who were trying to reduce or eliminate waste from their daily lives. We’re part of a larger trend: Around the world, cities have committed to zero-waste targets. And if cities can do it, then restaurants can too: Under our Green Standard Initiative, Just Salad aims to send zero waste to landfill by 2022.
So how do we get there? We’re following the Reduce-Reuse-Recyle hierarchy to realize our zero-waste vision.
REDUCE
By Reduce, we mean preventing waste before it happens. To that end, we’ve implemented bagless checkout and pickup at our stores. You’ll still find recyclable paper bags if you need them, but they’ll be located at a bagging station that’s intentionally separated from the checkout counter. In addition, we plan to reduce the size of our carryout bags to save paper, after realizing they could be made smaller without inconveniencing our guests.
REUSE
In an industry where single-use food containers are taken for granted, Just Salad is a proud outlier. We have scaled our Reusable Bowl program across all of our locations, which will number around 50 by year-end. Of course, there’s room to improve: We want to increase usage of the Reusable Bowl to a majority of our customers, from the current 30%.
We get it: Incorporating a reusable salad bowl into one’s routine means leaving behind the convenience of disposables. To encourage this habit change, we offer a free topping with every use, and we run seasonal promotions like the $99 Bottomless Salad Bowl, which entitles guests to a free salad every day during the month of May.
Furthermore, to make the Reusable Bowl work for 100% of our customers, we need to expand the program to pick-up and delivery. This is a logistical challenge that very few in our industry have tackled. In 2020, we’ll start testing ways to incorporate Reusables into our online ordering platform.
In the years ahead, we plan to advocate even more loudly for Reuse within the fast-casual industry — and that goes beyond salad bowls to utensils, cups and more. At Just Salad, we do not see compostable food service ware as the ultimate answer to our global waste problem. Most commercial composting facilities do not welcome these items because they do not break down fast enough, nor do they add value to soil.
We are seeking solutions to this complex problem. In the meantime, we see Reusables as the best choice among other eco-friendly options.
RECYCLE
One of our biggest sustainability challenges is contending with the non-recyclable single-use plastic that pervades the food service industry — from disposable latex gloves to snack bar wrappers.
The solutions are not clear-cut in every case, but we’re taking common-sense steps. For example, in the snack category, we plan to feature brands that use sustainable packaging — such as AlterEco, a maker of chocolate truffles that come in eucalyptus based, certified compostable wrappers. And soon, we will offer boxed water, whose recyclable packaging produces 75% fewer carbon emissions than plastic bottles.
We’re also excited about next-gen concepts like edible cups and seaweed-based straws. While you won’t see these items in our stores anytime soon, we believe this kind of innovation will hasten a future where zero-waste restaurants are the norm, not the exception.
Leftover food is another waste stream we’re tackling. In landfills, food lacks the conditions necessary to break down harmlessly. If it were a country, wasted food would be one of the top emitters of greenhouse gas emissions globally. Thus, Just Salad is committed to composting food waste across our U.S. locations.
Green Standard Initiative
Our Green Standard Initiative boils down to three goals:
- Sending zero waste to landfill
- Composting all food waste
- Diverting at least 100,000 pounds of plastic from landfill annually
We aim to achieve these goals by 2022, and we know it won’t be easy. But we’re encouraged by the momentum that the zero-waste movement is gaining among policy makers, entrepreneurs, and our own loyal customers.
If you’d like to support Just Salad’s zero-waste efforts, here are some ways to get involved:
- Purchase a $1, BPA-free, food-safe Reusable Bowl and use it every time you dine at Just Salad. You’ll receive a free topping every time!
- Go bagless whenever you order a single menu item at one of our stores
- Follow and tag us on Instagram @justsalad and Twitter @justsalad and tell us how you’re incorporating reusables into your daily lunch routine — with the Reusable Bowl and beyond.
@sandranoonan is Chief Sustainability Officer at Just Salad, Founder of ZeroWasteNYC, and co-founder of the Zero Waste NYC Workshop Series.
