Yesterday Kraft Foods announced that by 2025 all of its packaging will be recyclable. (Note that while they include "reusable" and "compostable" in the announcement, they talk almost exclusively about "recyclable.")
Earlier, Starbucks announced that it was eliminating all single-use straws and switching to a "sippy cup" lid. However, it seems that this new lid, while recyclable, may actually use more plastic.
Poor recycling rates around the world are already well-documented in several answers on this site:
- What percentage of plastic drinking bottles is recycled after use, worldwide?
- What is current best practice for setting up recycling?
- How much of paper gets recycled?
It seems intuitive that if people are already bad at recycling, increasing the share of products which are truly recyclable will actually result in recycling rates decreasing.
Are there any large restaurant chains which are pursuing better alternatives than recycling? Obviously as eco-conscious consumers we have a responsibility to reduce, but manufacturers could work on making their packaging reusable, or at the very least compostable.
I'll also include large food manufacturing brands (Kraft, Nestle, Dannon/Danone, etc). Essentially, any large company producing large volumes of food or beverage in their own, branded packaging. Restaurants sell this in their own stores, manufacturers sell it in someone else's stores.