Final (plastic) straw for restaurants San Carlo chain to ban single use plastics in green initiative
BIRMINGHAM restaurant group San Carlo is banning plastic drinking straws. The award-winning Italian chain – loved by celebrities and footballers – announced it was getting rid of straws in light of environmental concerns about single plastic use.
The chain estimates it uses around 600,000 straws in its 18 restaurants across the country every year.
Group managing director, Marcello Distefano had the idea as he sat one of the group’s most recent openings, Fumo in Selfridges.
The chain also runs Fumo in Waterloo Street, San Carlo in Temple Street and Gran Cafe in Selfridges.
Customers will be able to order paper straws instead as businesses across the globe are being urged to rethink their use of plastics for environmental reasons. Mr Distefano said: “I have been aware of the plastic discussions for a while with respect to its effect on the environment and especially the oceans. “I thought the plastic bag initiative in shops was fantastic and the reduction of usage is phenomenal. “Recently there has been more interest in campaigning to stop the use of many single use plastics, and straws in bars, restaurants and cafés is an easy fix. “There are paper-based products out there that do exactly the same job. “Most of the time people don’t even use the straws they are given. “So if we can help our environment in a small way then why not? It doesn’t change the customer’s experience. “We have been doing it for a while in Selfridges in line with their sustainable oceans campaign. I was sat in Fumo Selfridges and wondered why we hadn’t done it across the group. Hence we made that decision and by the middle of next week you won’t see any plastic straws in any of our other restaurants. There are other restaurants doing it already and hopefully this could be done across the whole sector.”
Mr Distefano added: “As a company we have committed to use less plastic where possible, plastic drinking straws are one change we can make quite easily. Across the group we use around 600,000 straws every year. For something used so briefly which goes on to do so much potential harm to the environment, it seems an obvious change to make.”