It's Tuesday, September. I'm Oscar Emiraz from the Daily Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is Reopening America. Big thank you to my colleague Mo Kelly for filling in for me while I was on vacation. He did a wonderful job and we have one more story from him. Have you noticed that your trash has expanded along with your waistline with all that ordering and you've been doing during the pandemic. Tom Seats, Sama, food critic at the Washington Post, joins us with tips on minimizing your trash
pilot from all those takeout containers. Joining us right now is Tom set, food critic for the Washington Post. Tom, thank you for coming on today. Thank you for having me. In a normal year, you'd be commenting. I would think on the food and presentation within the confines of a restaurant, But now we get to talk about to go containers and their unintended trash consequences. Let me start with this environmental implications aside what has been the trash pile up
consequence for you? Well? As a food critic, I generally eat out at least ten meals a week, so I'm bringing all these containers into my home now, right and over the summer, I just said, I'm gonna start collecting me and see how much this all adds up to. So for three weeks earlier this summer, I collected packaging from about thirty different takeout orders, and I was shocked by what I got. At the end of three weeks, It's filled two big recycling containers about a hundred gallons
of space altogether. And that's just one person ordering. Obviously, you know, a food could extend over order so they can sample a range of a menu. But in this case, you know, I could have been like a family of two or a family of four. Right, and just shocked me. And we spread it out on my backyard and took a photograph of it, and oh boy, did I feel guilty. Why did you feel guilty because just the trash piling up itself? Or were you thinking about environmental conditions or
what have you? Like a lot of people, I do try be a good steward. I think I do a good job at recyce Lane. In my personal life and professional life. You know, I'm always sitting left over to home with friends and things like that. But in this case, I think as a lot of experts told me to. People were thinking safety and health first, and a lot of us, for many of us, were not prepared to cook up to twenty one meals a week for ourselves at home, right, So take out from restaurants has been
a real lifeline. We've also been supporting restaurants that way too, especially in larger urban areas like Washington, l A, New York. You know, there's this huge spike in take out, and I wanted to be the story, but I wanted to also show myself, like, this is how much trash you're taking in just through a restaurant and is going out the back door. And again, it really overwhelmed me when I saw the amounts just to spread out on my
back lawn. I would argue, you are an exceptional case, if only because you are having to and intentionally eat out every single me less opposed to some families will be cooking some of those meals. But let's get down to the nitty gritty. How do you recommend going about minimizing the amount of trash that you are creating through these take out boxes and containers. I'm starting to just say no, campaign reimagine for and beyond. I think we all need to ask for ourselves questions. First of all,
do we really need naps into tensiles condiments? Oftentimes that signals the no for me, right, So I think just like these little modest measures certainly add up. There's often an option when you're ordering from the delivery apps from the restaurants themselves to decline plastic and other utensils if you don't want them. I think it's important to ask
restaurants to what kind of materials they're using. Obviously you don't want to do this at prime time, but make inquiries and let restaurants know that this matters to you. Because only with that sort of feedback and we affect change or in restaurants change what they do. You know, if enough people get on board and call and ask questions. Obviously, initially,
of course, it was very difficult for restaurants. A lot of places were not prepared for the volume of takeouts that they got, right, and they had to scramble to get any kind of takeout packaging they could. Well. Now seven months into the pandemic and things have calmed down somewhat and people have had a little time to investigate packaging solutions, and I think there's an ideal time for restaurants to change if in fact they want to. I think it's also really important to remember to use the
fewest resources possible. Maybe order several meals that makes for a few days, or do a group order with neighbors or people who have similar tastes. You. The whole point is to get the packaging that is recyclable or impossible, and to do it with as little energy as possible, and let restaurants know you want that option. Again, Tom, before I let you go, I would want to know whether the packaging of the food has impacted your discriminating palette in any way. Do you notice is there a
noticeable change. I often times replaced food that I get just to kind of recreate that experience that I missed of dining in a dining room. So I put barbecue on fine china, you know, GNS suits or anything like that. But I will try and recreate a bit of a civilized normal environment for myself by replating it at home and certainly using my own utensils. And by the way, it's an all our fuge. Better when it's not eaten
with plastics or nice spoon. You can make that experience for yourself a lot better by just using your own plates and utensils. And there you have it. He is Tom Sitsima, food critic and now trash critic for The Washington Post. I don't think you intended to get that added onto your resume, but it's now there. Tom. Thank you, Tom, thank you for your time to today. Hey, thank you so much. I appreciate it. I'm Oscar Ramirez and this
has been reopening America. Don't forget that. For today's big news stories, you can check us out on The Daily Dive podcast every Monday to Friday, so follow us on I Heart Radio or wherever you get your podcast