A restaurant manager in Delhi has signed out of a food aggregator platform and asked his customer to come with a tiffin box to the restaurant to collect food. It might sound like a funny incident, but it was actually a noble thought as the restaurant did not want to use plastic for food delivery.
PM Narendra Modi aims to eradicate the use of single use plastics by 2022 and this has made people to turn wee bit conscious. While the Indian Government is still on progress of banning the single use plastic.
When we order food online from Swiggy, Zomato or UberEats etc. we are aware about the plastic wrapping that comes along with the food along with the plastic tapes and plastic boxes. The aggregators are now beginning to take up an active role as they are aware of rising use of plastic by restaurant partners.
A marketplace for alternative packaging
On 2017, two years back, Zomato was the first to come up with ‘don’t send cutlery’ option. The food tech unicorn is also working with research based startups to introduce high quality eco-friendly packaging.
“For a wider use case we will soon be launching an online marketplace employing our network of suppliers for restaurantsto easily procure eco-friendly packaging. It will include a segment of 100% naturally biodegradable units, largely consisting of sugarcane bagasse, palm leaf, bamboo and paper solutions” said a Zomato spokesperson.
Taking charge
It is been a year now that Swiggy has been running a marketplace called Swiggy Packaging Assist. Which enables restaurant partners to get access to variety of packaging solutions including eco friendly options made of paper and glass materials. A swiggy member said “Many of our restaurant partners across the cities have slowly started using greener packaging solutions when possible”.
Swiggy said that it took up Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) for 100 tonnes of plastic a month and will grow 6 times over in next few months.
Zomato and Swiggy’s rival- UberEats educates about the importance of right packaging to its restaurant partners. “We firmly believe that food delivery platforms can play a major role to empower restaurants and local businesses with sustainable packaging and encourage implementations of economical, plastic free packaging and eco-friendly options” said UberEats.
Source: Business Standard
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