The project is a collaboration between the corporate network Global Compact Network and the industry organization Denmark’s Restaurants and Cafes. It is funded by the Industry Fund.
According to the project, the largest delivery players in the takeaway market have experienced a large increase in sales of takeaway in 2020 compared to 2019.
The two companies Wolt and Takeout.dk, which both bring food out, have experienced a doubling in the number of orders from 2019 to 2020.
During the same period, Hungry.dk and roomservice.dk saw an increase of 20 and 30 percent, respectively.
But more orders also mean more plastic trays will be long over the counter. And this is a worrying development for the environment, according to the World Goals in the Value Chain.
– All this packaging is used only once and is at best recycled if the packaging can be recycled and if the consumer sorts it where the food is consumed. Otherwise, all packaging will be incinerated. Only a fraction is recycled, says Karen Panum Thisted, project manager in the World Goals in the Value Chain.
She believes that the lack of recycling is due to the lack of an infrastructure and a system to deal with it. And it is now more than ever that one should get it right.
The same is the opinion of Ditte Lysgaard Vind, who works with circular economy and is the founder of The Circular Way, which helps companies see the possibility in recycling solutions.
– When we talk about disposable use and takeaway, there is the double problem that both a lot of energy and a lot of resources are used in producing it, and that the materials all too often end up in the wrong places, she says.
According to Ditte Lysgaard, it is especially the companies that need to find better solutions. For one can not be sure of the quality of sorting and thereby recycling if it is done only in private homes.
She believes that we should be inspired by countries such as Switzerland, where in some places a form of deposit system has been introduced on packaging.
Here, for example, the consumer gets a reusable coffee cup instead of a cardboard to-go cup, which must then be handed in the next time he buys a cup of coffee.
– Many of these kinds of systems are in fact inspired by the Danish Return System.
– We have been good at politically going to the breweries to establish a scheme for recycling. It is obvious to do it with takeaway as well, says Ditte Lysgaard Vind.
Source: The Nordic Page