There’s a new BYO (“Bring Your Own”) in town with the goal of minimizing harmful single-use items. Bring Your Own what? That last letter is up to you!
The BYO movement encourages customers to bring their own containers to be safely filled on-site at food and retail locations. Customers can opt to use their own travel mugs, foodware, jars, and other containers to avoid disposable consumer packaging. BYO is a simple, low-tech solution that promotes participation from businesses and consumers alike. As an important aspect of reuse strategies, BYO promotes multiple pathways to a reusable, circular economy across Canada. It allows for the freedom of choice and flexibility required for certain communities to achieve more circular, reusable practices.
Source: Avenue Calgary
The BYO movement is simple. Nonetheless, the ability of local governments and businesses to implement and support these programs varies across regions. In Canada, the landscape for BYO programs and policy is far different than that of the United States. No overarching federal law specifically prohibits or bans BYO in Canada. The Canadian Food Retail and Food Services Code provides model requirements for assuring food safety at the federal level. The provinces and territories have their own specific food premises and safety regulations that are more prescriptive. Each variably references the use of reusable containers on food premises but no province/territory outright restricts the use of reusables.
Emerging Canadian municipal bylaws increasingly allow individual businesses to develop written policies outlining conditions of customers bringing reusables. Of course, standard sanitizing and contamination concerns must still be addressed. This policy type allows businesses to have clear expectations of acceptable and unacceptable use of reusables. Health and safety must be considered. The City of Edmonton’s recent SUI bylaw is a great example. This municipal policy mandates individual food businesses to define a policy relating to the use of customer-owned reusables (Sections 19-21).
Source: Plastic Free Places
BYO is particularly useful for festivals and community events. Where groups of people gather to celebrate with food and drinks, there are often large amounts of single-use waste. For both event holders and attendees, BYO is a low investment, high impact choice to reduce their plastic waste footprints. It can be incorporated into many of the food type facilities we see at local events. For example, this includes food trucks, independent concession stands, and temporary pop-up shops that might lack access to deposit programs. Mind Your Plastic and other environmental NGOs advocate for BYO at events and festivals. We need these solutions available to community members.
Community building is another benefit of BYO that can be underestimated. It is a straightforward way to encourage citizen participation in solid waste management and climate advocacy. Organizations like Zero Waste Ithaca help foster a community of plastic reduction advocates that recognize the importance of grassroots initiatives. Each person involved in BYO work carries their knowledge and passion back to a circle of friends and family. This can educate and influence others to reduce the amount of disposable packaging in their lives. Successful BYO programs also show demand for reusable systems, thus encouraging businesses to consider internal switches to reusables. Opportunities are generated through BYO for community members to unite, discuss sustainability, and push the reuse movement forward.
Sometimes, BYO is argued to be anti-equity and exclusionary because the onus is on customers to change their packaging behaviours. While it is completely reasonable that customers should not be responsible for system changes, it is often the only avenue available. We know that the actions of individuals will not solve systemic issues, but every small action makes a difference.
For equity purposes, a city, local organization or business can easily support BYO for low-income communities. This can be accomplished through a reusable foodware program that provides free reusable foodware to those facing barriers to take part. We have seen this type of accessibility accommodation within existing reusable policies, like exempting WIC recipients from disposable cup fees. At its core, BYO is the most entry-level, accessible strategy for food and retail packaging reduction. Businesses save on the cost of waste disposal and can engage in reusability without any pre-investment. Consumers can avoid the added $2-$5 deposits on food or drinkware items that must be returned in timely manners.
In a perfect world, everywhere would be equipped to support the infrastructure of a comprehensive deposit-refund system (DRS). In reality, the current DRS works extremely well in high population, well-defined geographic scales. A series of collection points can be established and a significant number of food service facilities can join. DRS on this scale is likely not possible to establish in the immediate future in smaller towns and cities. The affordability of investing in reverse logistics and collection for fewer businesses and smaller populations can be a major challenge. Nonetheless, BYO is a logical choice that should be available to all food service and retail consumers.
The biggest takeaway from the BYO conversation is that there does not need to be an all or nothing solution. BYO does not have to be the only reusable choice available. It can work in harmony with more structured, business-led reusable programs or compostable options. Plastic pollution has no silver bullet solution. Complex waste problems need a series of innovative solutions. Governmental limitations of citizens’ abilities to bring their own containers because of restrictive food codes do not empower citizens to change their waste habits. Small, individual BYO actions can catalyze other important policy decisions that allow system-wide change.
The goal of reusables is to provide healthier, sustainable replacements for disposables, with the standard of sanitation. The growing trend of business policies to clearly outline conditions for BYO containers ensures worker safety and customer understanding. Local health authorities have also released post-COVID sanitization guides that all confirm reusables as a safe packaging choice. Thus, health and safety concerns should not be a justification to prohibit BYO outright through food codes or other regulations.
BYO is an important rung of the ladder of plastic waste reduction. It underlies the new and innovative solutions emerging in this space. Anyone can bring their own container without paying a deposit in a reusable scheme. It can even result in discounts for customers! Investment in DRS and wider deposit infrastructure is crucial for the future of the circular economy. Nonetheless, that does not require a prohibition on BYO. The two strategies can work hand in hand to create a multi-level approach to single-use plastic and eliminating disposable waste.
About the Author
Michelle Brake is the Program and Policy Manager at Mind Your Plastic (MYP). She holds a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in political science from Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario. Learn more about Michelle here!
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