W6.8 Reusable takeout
Amend health code to allow reusable take out containers.
They are not cheap… Some restaurants run programs like Dig’s, in which you pay $3/month to enroll in a program where you bring the dishes back and they wash them. Harvard’s food service manages a similar program with tokens, and GoBox runs a program like this in San Francisco and for 3,500 members at ninety different restaurants in Portland.
Many restaurants are hesitant to deal with containers customers bring in because of cross-contamination issues. A new California law lets restaurants choose to handle them, specifying a number of procedures – they have to keep the containers separate from serving surfaces or sanitize the surfaces each time a container’s been on one. (They also have to have a written cross-contamination-prevention policy in place and make it available for inspectors.) The law also allows vendors at concerts, festivals and other events to fill cups customers bring.