Do you wince when you toss those empty plastic shampoo bottles again? Cringe as you crush yet another Styrofoam to-go container into your already-full trash can? Well, thanks to various environmental groups, restaurants and businesses in Northern Nevada who supply reusable alternatives, it’s getting easier to ditch single-use plastic, paper and Styrofoam products.
In September 2023, Coffeebar expanded its partnership with Okapi Reusables to the Reno/Tahoe locations, making them the first in the area to use the Okapi network. Coffeebar’s Bay Area locations had already been using the program—a borrow-and-return reusable-cup service that features insulated stainless-steel cups made for hot or cold beverages. Using the Okapi app, users pay a one-time fee of $10 to borrow up to two cups at a time. Users have two weeks to return their cups to any of the 50-plus cafés participating in the program.
Olivia Tull, senior marketing manager at Coffeebar, said the program is going well.
“Overall, we’ve seen an aggregate upward trend of borrowing across all of our cafés,” Tull said. “Our biggest borrowers are still in the Bay … but our next biggest are actually our McCarran and Mt. Rose locations.”
Tull noted that in December, Coffeebar hit 1,000 Okapi cup borrows across all of its locations. According to Okapi co-founder Emily Chueh, participation at Reno’s Coffeebar locations has saved about 650 disposable cups from the landfill so far.
Other area restaurants have been taking similar approaches. Through the Green Box To-Go program from greenUP!, an environmental nonprofit formed in 2008, nine restaurants in Northern Nevada have offered access to the reusable takeout-container program since the spring of 2022. Customers may borrow reusable containers—paying a one-time membership fee of $20 to borrow two containers at a time, or $40 for four containers—and return them within two weeks to avoid being charged a replacement fee. While greenUP! is working on finalizing an app for the Green Box To-Go program, you can enroll online through their website.
Carson City restaurants participating in greenUP!’s Green Box To-Go program include Squeeze In, Great Basin Brewing Company, Scoups Ice Cream and Soup Bar, So Juicy Juice and Salad Bar, and Juan’s Mexican Grill’s Carson Street location. Squeeze In’s locations in Northwest Reno and Sparks are also participants, and Laughing Planet’s two locations just started as well. Donna Walden of greenUP! said she expects the program’s reach will expand further into Reno and Las Vegas in 2024.
Since the spring of 2023, Nevada Dining at the University of Nevada, Reno, has utilized a system of reusable Ozzi containers. They’re available at Pack Place for a one-time deposit. Students can take food to-go in a reusable container and exchange it for a fresh one when done.
According to Regina Flores, communications specialist at Nevada Dining, the measure has been popular. “There have been 4,150 Ozzi boxes used since the launch of the program,” she said in an email to the RN&R. “For context, there are 2,594 students that have a meal plan.
“The newer generation on campus is definitely a little bit more environmentally friendly and cautious,” Flores said about the program’s popularity.
Household products on tap
Other businesses in Reno continue to offer reusable options.
The Waste Less Shop opened in 2021 and offers 50 bulk products that range from household goods to bath and beauty products. The shop sells reusable containers and dispenses 10 liquid products—including dish soap, hand soap, shampoo and conditioner—through a tap system.
“We have a growing customer base,” said owner Stephanie Cochrane told the RN&R. “Once they start refilling those essentials, we have a 75 percent return-customer rate.”
In 2023, Cochrane said, the store served almost 9,000 customers, adding that the store has sold 52,000 laundry loads worth of detergent in reusable packaging.
Elsewhere, refill options have not caught on so quickly. According to staff at the Great Basin Community Food Co-op in Reno, relatively few people take advantage of their bulk offerings intended to go in reusable containers, which include solid and liquid food and non-food items. When they do, nuts, seeds, granola and flour are the most popular.
Forecasting the future of reusables
Where will this trajectory carry the trend of reusables in Nevada? Lakshmi Albright, co-founder of Reusable Reno, a volunteer coalition committed to raising awareness about single-use plastic waste, told the RN&R she is “cautiously hopeful.”
Albright said she is especially encouraged by the appointment of Washoe County sustainability manager Brian Beffort.
In a world plagued by enormous environmental problems, a switch to reusable containers may seem awfully small. But according to the Reusable Packaging Association, switching to reusables from single-use plastics could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 60 percent. It also has the potential to dramatically reduce water and energy consumption, as well as the amount of solid waste in landfills.
Albright said that the local chapter of the Sierra Club (of which she is a member) has met with lawmakers to seek action during next year’s legislative session. The club would like a law requiring restaurants to wait for customers to ask for plastic utensils, instead of including them in to-go orders automatically. They would also like delivery apps like DoorDash to include an option asking customers whether they need to-go utensils. “Everybody loves it, but we haven’t found a champion yet,” said Albright. “In Nevada, there’s a lot of verbal interest, but there isn’t a lot of effort going on at the legislative level to enact any actual ordinance for reusables, and there aren’t citizens pushing for it.”
The story has been different in California. The city of Oakland passed an ordinance on Dec. 19 that requires prepared food and beverage vendors to supply reusable food ware to customers who dine in; allow customers to use their own reusable containers to take food to-go; and only provide single-use utensils or other food ware upon request.
In 2019, Berkeley became the first city in California to pass a law that requires businesses offering on-site dining to provide only reusable food ware. The law mandates a 25-cent charge for all disposable cups.
Effective Jan. 1, the town of Truckee requires all food vendors to charge 25 cents for each disposable cup and container used for to-go orders, and encourages patrons to utilize the town’s own reusable green-box program. Participants in the program pay $5 for a reusable to-go container, and can exchange it for a clean one for free at any participating restaurant.
Some measures meant to decrease waste, however, don’t work. In February, the Los Angeles Times reported that in the decade since California became the first state in the U.S. to ban single-use plastic bags, the volume of plastic-bag waste actually increased—because the law allowed heavier plastic bags, which technically meet definition of “reusable” (but are rarely actually reused), to be sold for 10 cents each.