MAKING A DIFFERENCE
More and more eateries in the UAE are ditching ecologically unsafe straws and plastic cutlery, finds Colin Drury
At a rough estimate, about 500,000 pieces of plastic cutlery and straws are ending up in landfills and seas here every year. One man’s initiative is helping make a difference.
It is not often a restaurant owner admits – in public at least – that his business ‘sucks’. But that is just what Ian Ohan, founder and CEO of Freedom Pizza, did in a recent blog post. He was talking about the company’s (over)use of straws – and the potential environmental damage they were causing. ‘We literally suck,’ he wrote. ‘My family and I order from Freedom pretty regular,’ he explains to Friday. ‘And I realised, over the space of a few months, we’d acquired a draw full of plastic cutlery and straws which we never used. And I started wondering, as a company, how many of these packs were we sending out?’
He ran some calculations and found the figure: almost 500,000 every year.
‘I was horrified,’ says the 44-year-old of Arabian Ranches. ‘I can’t even visualise what half a million straws looks like. But the environmental impact of all that plastic waste – whether it goes to landfill or ends up in the sea – is shocking to even contemplate. And I had this moment where I just thought, ‘I’m personally helping destroy our oceans – just to give people straws’.’
So, Ian, who founded the chain in 2015, took action. He immediately stopped his nine restaurants – spread across Dubai, Sharjah and Abu Dhabi – from giving away the plastic implements. Instead, customers could opt in for biodegradable cutlery which they would have to pay extra for. Precisely 98 per cent of diners now go without it.
‘It was such an easy environmental win for us,’ he says. ‘It was a no-brainer.’
And yet, as it turns out, it may be a little more than that too. For this single strawless policy at a single independent pizza chain is, it seems, now sparking something of a quiet eco-revolution within some of the biggest food companies and restaurant brands here in the UAE.
There are no current numbers for how many plastic straws are used – and thrown out – in the UAE. But, suffice to say, it’s a lot.
In the US, a country with a population of 325 million, some 500 million of them are used every single day. Experts say the figure here will likely be greater per head because of the sheer popularity of dining out and takeaway food. ‘Giving away stra ws is endemic in all of t hat,’ says Ian.
This is bad because plastic is a toxic and destructive environmental force.
When dumped in landfill it takes up vast quantities of space because, as a material, it does not begin to decompose for decades: plastic buried in the ground will still be there hundreds of years later. But it is when the stuff finds its way into the sea – through illegal dumping, poor waste management systems or coastal littering – that it is perhaps at its most problematic.
‘This waste is often mistaken for food by marine animals,’ explains Marina Antonopoulou, marine programme leader with Emirates Wildlife Society. ‘High concentrations of plastic material have been found in the breathing passages and stomachs of fish, sea birds and turtles, essentially suffocating or poisoning them. Floating plastic debris can also get entangled with marine species causing them to drown.’
Such pollution is increasingly becoming a danger to human life too. As smaller plastic particles are eaten by fish and accumulate in their tissue, so such particles find their way into our food chain and our bodies.
All of which is particularly troublesome for a coastal country such as the UAE. A healthy marine ecosystem here is vital for everything from encouraging tourism and leisure (and, thus, building a strong and diverse economy) to a good diet and scientific research. ‘The links between a healthy sea and the UAE’s health as a country are explicit,’ adds Marina.
Indeed, it is perhaps for these reasons that, on International Volunteer Day in December, Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Dubai Crown Prince and Chairman of Dubai Executive Council, spent time helping to clean the Arabian Sea near Dubai Marina.
‘Making a difference to the environment starts with the small changes we make in our everyday lives,’ he said at the time. ‘The activity conducted today not only raises awareness about the importance of preserving the environment but also effectively marries our vision for environmental volunteering and the country’s efforts in this space.’
Together with a team of diving experts and child volunteers, he personally helped clear several bags worth of rubbish.
‘That was a very important message,’ says Ian. ‘There’s no doubt Freedom took inspiration from that. It made us realise that changing the company’s behaviour in just a small way could make a big difference. I love the UAE – I’m Canadian but I’ve lived here 20 years now – and I love its coast and its seas. So not trying to reduce pollution wasn’t an option anymore.’
Perhaps inspired by this very thought, Ian decided not just to ban plastic straws in his own chain but lay down the gauntlet to the industry here as a whole.
He dared other UAE restaurants to do the same. Inspired by a similar campaign in the US – called Strawless Ocean, which encourage American firms to eliminate plastic waste – he called for similar action from his peers.
‘Imagine if every food and delivery company in the UAE accepted this challenge,’ he wrote in that blog post in February. ‘Imagine what that would mean for harmful plastic waste to our precious environment. We now officially extend our challenge to our peers. We will stop sucking. The question is…will you?’
If calling out the industry seemed like a bold move, he says
High concentrations of plastic material have been found in stomachs of marine creatures, essentially poisoning them 9 8 % diners opted not to use plastic cutlery Restaurants’ no-straw policy will save 81,000 straws annually.