St. Louis Park Restaurants Will Only Give Straws Upon Request
As of Wednesday, all St. Louis Park Restaurants will only give you a straw if you ask for one. This comes at the same time as the City of Minneapolis starting to charge $0.05 for a plastic bag.
The goal of the ordinance is to reduce the amount of trash created by food and beverage packaging.
This coincides with the City's Zero Waste Packaging Ordinance that originally went into effect January 1st, 2017, but some exemptions were not to go into effect until 2020. The ordinance states;
Effective January 1 for all food establishments
- Compostable utensils: Food establishments will be required to utilize compostable utensils, when not providing reusable options.
- Straws by request: Food establishments shall no longer provide straws to customers, unless requested. A front-of-house straw dispenser or other self-serve setup will meet the requirement of the ordinance.
Restaurants were not the only thing affected with the ordinance, food trucks were also included;
Effective January 1 for food trucks and July 1 for all other food establishments
- Compostable cup labeling: Food establishments will need to ensure that all compostable cups and containers are labeled to indicate compostability.
- Cup and container lids: Food establishments will need to ensure that lids used for compostable cups and containers are compostable and lids used for recyclable cups and containers are recyclable.
What do you think of these new ordinances? Should every city adopt these?
Wake up with Jarred Becker every weekday morning from 6a-10a on AM 1390 KRFO