Sauce sachets and takeaway cups should be ditched by cafes to cut waste, eco chiefs say

dailyrecord.co.uk:

Scotland's cafes have been urged to ditch the sauce sachets and bring back refillable bottles for our ketchup and brown sauce fix.

Zero Waste Scotland is calling on hospitality venues to slash their single-use rubbish after a pilot scheme in the capital saw a massive fall in the use of common disposable items.

The 12-month Ditching Disposables initiative saw sachet use plummet by 99 per cent where businesses switched to refillable sauce bottles.And takeaway cup use dropped by a staggering 96 per cent for firms which charged for single-use cups and offered a reusable cup for a deposit.Participating cafes, bars and restaurants were all in the Portobello and Joppa areas in the east of Edinburgh - with the district chosen in part because of the high volumes of litter found on Portobello Beach, around a third of which is disposable items.Firms involved in the trial included popular local haunts like pizza joint Civerinos, The Cake and Candy Tearoom, Spanish restaurant Malvarosa, and street food-style outlet ShrimpWreck.ZWS is now urging all food and drink businesses to adopt six key measures to reduce waste and save the planet, from refillable sauce bottles and reusable takeaway cups, to making straws and stirrers available by request only.A spokesman said: “The Ditching Disposables scheme has been a huge success, proving that with a few simple changes, hospitality businesses can have a dramatic effect on reducing their single-use waste.“We know that two massive barriers these businesses face when adopting more sustainable practices are time and money.“But this scheme demonstrates that time invested in implementing these small changes can have a substantial positive effect on the environment and business’ finances and the