To avoid plastic and waste, Bengaluru eateries say ‘bring your own box’ for parcels

BENGALURU: A few eateries in the city — in a bid to reduce plastic waste, food wastage and the use of disposable packaging — are asking customers to BYOB, that is, bring your own boxes and bags for parcelled food.  A few restaurants in Bengaluru's HSR Layout have taken the lead in rolling out this initiative.

They disallow disposable boxes, levy extra packaging charges to discourage disposable packaging and even serve smaller quantities of food to minimise food wastage. The eateries are also replacing the non-woven polypropylene cap that the chefs wear with washable cloth caps.

Customers hope that green star ratings are given for such eateries on Zomato, Dineout and Swiggy to encourage more patrons to eat out at eco-friendly eateries. Krishna B, part of the management at Asha Tiffins, HSR Layout, says, “Around 60 per cent of our customers bring their own boxes, and we use a high-quality food grade parcelling material if they don't. We charge high parcel charges so they bring their own boxes.”

“We educate customers on the charges here, which very few restaurants do. We also measure our food in grams. We have a 4.4 rating on Zomato, but they haven't added a green star rating. We charge Rs`20 for meals packaging for instance, which is higher than usual. Also, our chefs only wear cloth caps that we got made, not the plastic caps,” Krishna says, adding that other than for packaging, the hotel does not use plastic anywhere. Coffee containers are made of wood pipe material, and organic cleaning solutions are used to wash dishes.

Arogya Aahara has branches in JP Nagar and HSR Layout. Its manager, Arun Padmonkar, says, "Our main line of work is takeaway food. On an emergency basis, we give paper boxes. But we ask customers to bring their own boxes. In March this year, we completely stopped providing packaging material.”

“Aluminum foil is coated with plastic so we do not encourage packing tandoori rotis with it. Our business came down by 40 per cent when we stopped providing aluminum foil, but we continued. Customers do complain, but we have a team to explain to them, and sometimes, there are unwarranted arguments too,” he says. Parcel charges range from `3 to `20 if needed by customers, depending on the size.