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Orangeville Reduces
Town of Orangeville
Our
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Orangeville Reduces promotes environmentally sustainable practices adopted by restaurants and food retailers within the Town of Orangeville by offering a sticker recognition program. Through this program, our group aims to increase consumer awareness of the efforts local establishments are making to positively contribute to reducing waste, and especially the indiscriminate use of single-use plastics.
The sticker recognition program highlights 5 key practices that can be implemented by restaurants with minimal, and in most cases, no additional costs to the operator. We identify these practices in our 5-Star Eco-Rating system, each key practice identified by one of the first five letters of the alphabet:
A: Allows customers to bring their own refillable containers
B: Does not sell plastic Bottled water
C: Has implemented a Composting program
D: Has a Default no-straw policy
E: Eco-friendly containers used for take-out
Many restaurants/food retailers are already putting forth a lot of effort in these areas and our sticker program will help them get recognition, while at the same time helping to start new conversations and discussions around waste and waste practices in our community. Any establishment that is interested in participating in the program, or has any questions, should reach out posthaste! Orangeville Reduces is a sub-committee of Sustainable Orangeville, which assists in the development, implementation and promotion of environmentally sustainable practices in the Town of Orangeville. Our small but mighty team comprises Orangeville residents and eco-actionists, Grant Peters, Town Councillor, Jessica Marchildon and Debra Kralka.
Orangeville Reduces organizes, promotes, and participates in, waste challenges and clean up events all year long, focusing on data collection through the Litterati app. Through the power of open-source data, individuals, corporations, scientists, and researchers will be able to visualize and quantify waste patterns, and analyze the issue from new and innovative perspectives. In October of 2019 Orangeville Reduces held a symposium bringing together Restaurant Owners, Packaging Suppliers, and Dufferin Waste to discuss current restaurant approaches to sustainability, and how we may influence a downward trend of single-use take-out packaging. One outcome from those discussions is that the restaurant owners do not often hear, directly from the customer, that their efforts are recognized which can have a demotivating effect on the owner. It is not always easy to do the right thing, especially if no one is watching. This finding was one of the influences that lead to the development of our program.
Orangeville's BYO Business Community
Stay tuned!
Covid-19 update: Please remember to ask the businesses if they are currently accepting reusable containers. During these challenging times our local businesses are working hard and their BYO policies may have temporarily changed.