The Delaware House advances a bill that would prohibit restaurants from providing single-use food items unless asked for by a customer.
State Rep. Sophie Phillips’s (D-Bear) legislation, known as a “Skip the Stuff” bill, is an effort to reduce the amount of napkins, plastic utensils and condiment packets restaurants include in takeout orders.
Instead of these single-use food items being included in customer’s orders by default, House Bill 111 would require a customer to ask for those items directly in order for them to be provided, or restaurants can maintain a self-service station where customers can grab the items.
These "Skip the Stuff" laws are already in place in places like New York City, Washington D.C., Denver, Chicago, California, Washington State and numerous New Jersey municipalities.
Rep. Phillips, says restaurants stand to save thousands of dollars a year depending on their size if this becomes law and clarifies no single-use items would be outright banned.
“Not included in this bill are pizza boxes, wrappers like those that go on the bottom of ice cream cones, cups like the Dewey Beach orange crush cups that you get for example, containers that food or drinks are served in are not included. It's stuff served with food, like extra cups, not the cups or containers or anything that your food is coming in. That is not included in this bill," Rep. Phillips explained.
The bill faced contentious debate over the confusion it could cause for consumers or the harm it could cause restaurants via financial penalties or bad customer reviews.
If enacted, restaurants who violate the law can receive up to two written warnings. For a third or subsequent violation, a food establishment is subject to a $100 penalty, $200 for the fourth violation and $500 for the fifth or any subsequent violation
Grotto Pizza’s President and CEO Jeff Gosnear says while customers in other jurisdictions may already be used to a law like this, other tourists who come through Delaware won’t be.
“A lot of them are from Pittsburgh, they're from Pennsylvania, they're from all areas that don't have this. How are they not confused when they call on the phone, and we don't give them their forks, napkins and spoons and they go back to their hotel room, and then they write a bad review because we had bad service at that point in time?" Gosnear said during public comment.
Plastic Free Delaware Board of Directors Member Dee Durham testified in favor of the bill, holding up a plastic bag full of single-use food items her household has received from takeout orders, despite often requesting these items not be included.
"The big problem here is that the vast majority of this is when we already opted out. We flick that toggle switch or make sure that it's flicked to opt out of this stuff, but we get it anyway. So the voluntary aspect of trying to make this a voluntary thing is obviously not working, and that's proven by our coastal clean up data and river clean up data," Durham said. "The vast majority of takeout orders are eaten at home or in the office where you already have silverware and napkins and and condiments in the fridge, so you don't need all this stuff."
Republican lawmakers made an effort to table the bill for further consideration, but it was ultimately released from committee.
To pass this legislative session, the bill would have to clear a full House vote and then be brought to the Senate under the suspension of rules.
Another product-related waste-reduction bill is making its way through the legislature and has just one more step before clearing the General Assembly.
State Sen. Trey Paradee's (D-Dover) bill would prohibit retail stores and wholesalers from selling or distributing expanded polystyrene foam products.
Often similar to Styrofoam, the bill refers to products like foam coolers and foam loose fill packaging — like packing peanuts — which are difficult to recycle and are not accepted in Delaware's curbside recycling program.
The bill made it through the Senate 17-4, cleared its House committee hearing, and only needs approval from the full House to head to the governor for signature.
