Heather Fisher works hard to reduce garbage by choosing durable items over disposables. As she enjoyed a picnic in her favorite park on a recent afternoon, she unwrapped a handkerchief folded around her sandwich, and sipped coffee from a stainless-steel mug.
“I try to always have something on hand so I don’t have to use a throwaway cup,” the 39-year-old Vancouver resident said.
One step she hasn’t been able to take, however, is using her own bags and containers for bulk and produce purchases or for takeout, as many environmental groups encourage. Washington’s current food safety codes prohibit it. The state Department of Health is weighing a revision that would ease those rules.
In July, Fisher bumped up against the existing limits when she focused on reducing her use of plastic as part of an online challenge by Northwest Earth Institute in Portland.
The annual 31-day Plastic Free EcoChallenge calls upon participants to engage in specific challenges, several of which aren’t possible in Washington:
• “I will use my own containers when ordering takeout.”
• “I will purchase meats and cheeses from the deli counter or a butcher shop, and use my own containers to do so.”
• “I will purchase dry goods from the bulk section of my grocery store, and use my own containers to do so.”
• “I will not accept any disposable bags when making purchases, including produce bags.”
Fisher has done her best. She avoids produce bags, instead keeping her fruits and vegetables loose in the cart when grocery shopping.
“Sometimes checkers get upset, but they’re usually understanding if you say you’re trying to reduce use of plastics,” Fisher said.
She’s attuned to environmental issues given that she used to work for a nonprofit conservation group. She has since gone back to college to study wildlife sciences.
Environmentalists are troubled by plastics accumulating in the ocean. Even though some plastics can go in recycling bins, the market for them has collapsed.
Fisher’s not the only one who wonders why consumers can’t use their own containers for anything except beverages. (Current state health codes permit to-go mugs.)
Heather Trim, executive director of Zero Waste Washington, said her organization heard the same complaint at events around the state: “I want to use my own container but stores sometimes let me and sometimes won’t.”
“We’re trying to help people reduce packaging in their lives,” Trim said. So Zero Waste Washington took the concern to the state Department of Health, which happened to be in the midst of revising food safety codes.
The codes aim to prevent consumer-owned containers from contaminating food, whether by broken glass from a cracked Mason jar or bacteria from an unwashed mesh bag, said Susan Shelton, a food safety specialist with the state Department of Health.
“We are trying to reduce waste in Washington, but at the same time we have to maintain the same level of safety consumers expect and deserve,” Shelton said.
The proposed code changes would let customers use their own containers in certain circumstances. Customers could fill their own containers with bulk foods from a gravity-flow bin or other “contamination-free transfer system.” Customers would have to ask store or restaurant employees to put anything ready-to-eat in reusable containers they bring from home.
“That’s great to hear that the rules may change,” Fisher said.
It will make avoiding plastic and packaging easier, but Fisher never set out to eliminate plastic from her life. “People see ‘plastic-free July’ and they don’t think they can do that, so they don’t even start,” Fisher said. She acknowledges that plastic is found in cars, phones, computers, TVs, and many other items integral to modern life.
“It’s really hard to completely do away with plastic. I don’t know if you can totally do that unless you live completely off the grid. I live in the suburbs. So I just try to make better choices,” Fisher said. “No one can go plastic-free ‘perfectly.’ The most important thing is just to do your best.”
The point is to do what you can, agreed Sarah Keirns, an environmental outreach specialist with Clark County Public Health. The county’s Green Neighbors program encouraged participation in the July plastic-free challenge.
“The idea is to start small, maybe packing reusable dishes and silverware to work instead of reaching for plastic utensils,” Keirns said. “That could be a bigger leap for others depending on what their current practices are.”
Keirns also emphasized that actions should fall within current regulations.
“As much as we want waste reduction, we want people to be healthy safe at the same time,” Keirns said.
The state Department of Health’s proposed food safety changes seek to balance those goals, Shelton said.
The agency will have formal public hearings on the proposed changes in January, with the goal of making the new codes effective in May 2020.
