Our Eco Eaters project aims to address the problem of the continued use of these single-use plastics by restaurants by building a model in our community that can be used in other parts of the country and the world.
TEA's Earth Warriors Environmental Club were awarded 4th Place in the annual Shane McConkey Foundation Eco-Challenge in April. The contest aims to promote an environmentally friendly community through student-driven work. To enter the challenge, students were tasked to create an eco-team with an adult advisor, identify an environmental problem in our school or community, problem solve and implement the solution, and finally document findings and and results in a project report. Here is their proposal:
An estimated 18 billion pounds of single-use plastics from restaurants are swept into the ocean and other waterways every year, harming marine life and human health. Our Eco Eaters project aims to address the problem of the continued use of these single-use plastics, such as straws, forks or take-out boxes by restaurants by building a model in our community that can be used in other parts of the country and the world. Our goal is to help restaurants in the Truckee-Tahoe area replace single-use plastics with eco-friendly alternatives and to celebrate and promote (via social media and our website) those who are taking positive steps towards this goal. After seeing a few of our favorite restaurants taking action, we realized that every restaurant had the potential to also do this with some positive encouragement.
Through our Instagram and our website, we positively promote restaurants that are reducing single-use plastics and encourage restaurants who use these products to switch to more environmentally friendly utensils including to-go boxes, straws, plates, and silverware. Our target audiences are both tourists and Tahoe-Truckee area residents who are searching for restaurants to dine at. Specifically, we hope to be a source of information for people seeking environmentally-friendly restaurants and for people trying to do their part to reduce plastic waste.
Most of the visitors in the Tahoe-Truckee area are families from the Bay Area who are already environmentally conscious consumers — our web site will provide information to help them choose a restaurant based on the restaurants’ environmental friendliness. For those who aren't aware of the ecological impacts of the use of single-use plastics by restaurants, we will provide information on the web site on the environmental impacts of single-use plastics and the role that individuals can play in reducing this impact. Our target audience can learn something new from our website or social media while looking for a place to eat.
For restaurants, our website will also be a source of information and resources on how to most effectively reduce their use of single-use plastics. For example, we will provide recommendations on vendors and suggest practical changes that have been proven to work well with customers in other establishments.
Using the current popularity of social media, we immediately created an Instagram (eco.eaters), to spread awareness and encourage others to engage in environmentally conscious practices. We are currently developing a website (ecoeaters.org/ecoeaters.com) so tourists and locals can be informed about environmentally friendly eateries. We decided on the name, “Eco Eaters” because it sticks in your mind and describes our project’s purpose perfectly. Through our website, we can inform potential customers while also promoting environmentally-friendly restaurants and businesses.
We have visited over ten restaurants around the Tahoe-Truckee area already and collected data from all of them. Some of these restaurants already use alternatives to single-use plastic or have told us they would be open to the idea of using options. We would consider our project a success if we can have both positive environmental and economic impacts; i.e., that we reduce the use of single-use plastic in Tahoe-Truckee area restaurants and we improve visitation to those restaurants that decide to make changes. We are very excited to see what comes from the Eco Eaters!