Challenge
The environmental movement passed legislation which would prohibit the food service industry to use single use plastic or paper bags. The City of Santa Monica received pressure from environmental groups to ban single use plastic and paper bags in all foodservice establishments. This proved to be challenging for the food service industry since they were told that reusable bags would not be allowed to be passed into the back of the kitchen area for fear of cross contamination. This information was made clear from the Los Angeles County Environmental Health Department.

Solution
Englander and Associates worked with the City of Santa Monica and the food service industry to allow restaurants and fast-food establishment to continue using single use plastic and paper bags with no fee passed on to their customers. The City of Santa Monica also worked with Englander and Associates to see what the quality and performance differences were between single use paper and plastic bags.

Result
E & A was able to show that how liquid would break through the paper bags, easily upsetting customers. We also were able to show that the foodservice industry was working to find new environmentally safe food packaging and bags. This helped get the Santa Monica City Council to remove the food service industry from the single use plastic bag ban and single use paper bag fee.