AsiaLIFE

Getting food delivered to your house or office is a common and cheap trend in Phnom Penh. While it may not burn a hole in your pocket, the vast amount of packaging used for takeaways is a significant drain on the environment. Words by Nora Lindstrom.

 
Compared to eating out, takeaways create a substantial amount of waste. To get to your house in an appetising condition, food that would otherwise most likely be served on a regular plate has to be wrapped and covered in various ways. Putting price and functionality first, most cafés and restaurants pay little thought into what impact this wrapping will have on the environment. Though more or less environmentally friendly packaging does exist, in Phnom Penh it takes a great deal of effort to be green as the availability of products is limited. Some establishments however are leading the way for less harmful packaging.

A Green Challenge

Griet Lorré, owner of The Shop, is constantly looking for more environmentally friendly packaging solutions for deliveries. Spearheading the move towards green deliveries, she has been using non-bleached brown paper bags for takeaways since The Shop opened some eight years ago. To further minimise plastic waste, takeaway drinks are served in paper cups and customers are encouraged to bring their own reusable cups and flasks. Last year, The Shop expanded into delivering food in biodegradable boxes made from sugar palm pulp imported from Thailand. According to Griet the boxes are expensive, but she considers them a worthwhile investment. “You have to start somewhere,” she says. “I would prefer to use a locally made product, made using banana leaves or bamboo leaves for example.” Such products, at a reasonable price, are not yet widely available in Cambodia.

Like Griet, Dana Langlois at Java Café laments the lack of green and affordable packaging options. She stresses that in addition to ecological considerations, food packaging must take into account issues of hygiene and functionality. Eating fish and chips out of an old newspaper is thus not on the cards. At Java, typical lunch takeaways are currently delivered in white paper bags, with bagels and sandwiches wrapped in cling film. Condiments, such as crisps and salad come in separate plastic bags. While recognising there is room for improvement and being keen to learn about alternatives, she cites price and availability as key constraints to going green.

“At K'NYAY we use strong, reusable plastic containers to hold our food items where needed,” says David Hunt, co-owner of the restaurant. “We encourage our customers to reuse, recycle or return them.” Even the plastic cups in which drinks are delivered are made of sturdy plastic, and hence re-usable. Customers can also bring their own tiffin tins to K’NYAY for regular lunch orders. Two sets of tins are needed, one set for that day’s lunch and the other for the following day. “We're up for trying and using as much environmentally friendly packaging as possible,” says David, who is also keen to find local green packaging solutions. All deliveries are made in bags made from old Khmer newspapers and cardboard. “We're in the process of trying to produce totally natural packaging, a banana leaf box, to deliver our rice to customers” he says. He also notes that some of the items on the menu, for instance coconut and pumpkin parcels, have their own natural packaging.  

Plastic ain’t Fantastic

Not everyone is equally keen on promoting green values in their packaging. In fact, most establishments in the Penh have yet to catch on to the idea. Styrofoam boxes and tinfoil are cheap and widely available, hence almost universally used in deliveries. They are however particularly harmful to the environment in that they can seldom be re-used. Both materials reputedly take over five lifetimes to decompose. Takeaways generally arrive in plastic as opposed to paper bags and many food items are individually packed in plastic. Some claim plastic bags can take up to 500 years to decompose, but given that they have only been around for 50 years or so it’s difficult to say for sure.

Although it is important to take functionality into account when choosing packaging, there is no need to compromise quality when going green. The rice and stew delivered in K’NYAY’s sturdy plastic tubs arrived just as hot as the daal and rice from another restaurant, which came in an odd combination of plastic bag and styrofoam. K’NYAY’s stew was also significantly easier to serve, while The Shop’s biodegradable box was surprisingly sturdy, and kept the salad dressing from soaking through. Interestingly, all deliveries made in paper bags arrived in better condition than those in plastic bags. The paper bags’ robust flat bottoms and straight sides kept the different items from getting mixed up.  

Consumers can influence businesses by demanding greener policies, and favouring more environmentally friendly establishments. In this case, however, you can eliminate the problem altogether by literally voting with your feet by eating out – as long as you take your bike that is!

If you know of a restaurant that has environmentally friendly deliveries, email us at: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .