Saving Earth With BBT Straws
Local food delivery company GrabFood rolls out plastic-free bubble tea straws.
Written By: Vong Xiu Mei | Photos By: Kaylyn Lim, Natalie Teo
What if you could grow a plant while satisfying your bubble tea cravings? Fortunately, that tasty idea has already been made possible.
GrabFood is partnering with three of Singapore’s well-loved bubble tea brands – LiHO, PlayMade, and Woobbee – to trade in their plastic straws for Grab PlantStick straws.
PlantStick straws are compostable and made from plant-based materials. In other words, these bubble tea straws naturally decompose in soil to become humus, an organic matter that is nutrient-rich and water-retaining, which act as plant fertilisers! Unlike ordinary biodegradables, compostable materials leave no harmful residue behind.
The introduction of PlantStick straws is integral to the Plastic ACTion (PACT) initiative by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), to end plastic pollution and ensure continued use of our limited resources. According to the Ministry of Environment and Water Resources, in 2018 alone, packaging waste constituted one-third of the 1.6 billion kilogrammes of waste generated in Singapore. Over half of them were made of plastic; however, only 4% of plastic waste was recycled.
So, why not let your craving do the saving? You can grab hold of the PlantStick straws by ordering through GrabFood delivery or patronising any of the 117 LiHO, PlayMade, and Woobbee stores.
GrabFood is also working on planting compostable bins at participating bubble tea stores. This allows individuals to return the PlantStick straws for them to be properly composted. So, until then, hold onto your straws!
Reducing Plastic At The Touch Of A Button
On 4 December 2019, food delivery companies Deliveroo and foodpanda also announced their commitment to PACT.
Deliveroo recently partnered with BioPak to deliver eco-friendly packaging made from plant-based sources, certified sustainable paper, and even recycled paper.
On the other hand, foodpanda launched the “opt-out” plastic cutlery feature back in December 2017. It has since converted into a default toggle button, which customers have to “opt-in” should they require disposable utensils. As an ongoing incentive, a $5 voucher is rewarded for every five orders placed with no cutlery in each month.
Laura Kantor, foodpanda’s Head of Sustainability and Marketing, commented, “Since pioneering the sustainability movement in the food delivery industry with opt-in cutlery two years ago, we are proud to see how far we’ve come as an industry – but there is definitely a lot more that we can do.”
The three companies pledged to collectively save more than one million pieces of plastic utensils per week. This is fundamental to a commitment established by the food and beverage (F&B) industry to eliminate all unsustainable plastic packaging by 2024.
