New NYC Law BIG Cause for Celebration
It's about time we cut down on plastics!
This post is part of our Optimist In Action series, featuring stories of people, companies, and organizations working for positive change. The interview and piece were conducted and written by Matthew Gutierrez.
It’s About Time We #SkipTheStuff
Growing up in Jamacia, Raine Manley took to a motto that encapsulates the small island’s outsized influence in the world: “Wi likkle but wi tallawah” – “we’re small, but we’re strong”. The saying is part of the country’s consciousness. She applied the sentiment to her life and work, recognizing that you don’t need to be the loudest or biggest to make a difference.
Four years ago, when she ordered takeout, she’d leave a note on Grubhub asking restaurants not to include plastic utensils. They did, anyway. Frustrated, she experimented by keeping the utensils from each takeout order. How much could one person in New York accumulate? Soon she had collected a large bag full of plastic. After Googling, she found a bill forbidding restaurants from wasting all this plastic, and she spoke with friends in the environmental space about what could be done to reduce the waste.
“It totally changed the trajectory of my life,” Manley says.
At the time, Manley worked for AGO, a nonprofit human rights organization. She’d wake up early and spend two hours before work cold-emailing city council members to raise awareness. She connected with people at Reusable NYC, a coalition of organizations formed to eliminate needless waste and pollution created by single-use utensils, cups, clamshells, and straws. While volunteering there, Manley met a lawyer at Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), an international environmental advocacy group. She admired their mission and found a job as regional digital campaign director.
Last month, Manley spoke with The Climate Optimist from her Brooklyn home about her climate journey and her quest to rid New York City of unwanted plastic takeout utensils. She also details a bill known as “Skip The Stuff,” which was signed into law by New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Feb. 2nd. It prohibits takeout and delivery services from providing plastic utensils, condiments, or napkins unless explicitly requested by the customer. The bill has been passed in a few U.S. cities, including Los Angeles, Denver, Seattle, and New York.
The law will go into effect later this year, and restaurants will have until July 1, 2024, to make the necessary changes to their business operations. Those found in violation of the law after July 1, 2024, will be subjected to a $100 fine for the first violation, $200 for the second violation committed on a different day within 12 months of the first violation, and $300 for the third and following violations within a period of 12 months.
About The Law
In short: Skip The Stuff is a simple legislation asking restaurants and meal delivery services to provide accessories for takeout or delivery only if the customer requests them. The solution saves restaurants money and reduces waste. Each year, billions of unused straws, utensils, napkins, condiment packets, and other accessories are included in takeout and delivery orders and thrown away.
Americans use more than 36 billion utensils and as many as 142 billion straws each year. Every day, about 100 million plastic utensils are discarded across the U.S. Most restaurants provide these accessories for takeout meals even if the customer doesn’t want or needs them. The cost to dispose of single-use food waste in a year is roughly $1 billion.
For Manley, the stats are appalling. But she also knows there’s an opportunity to address the problem, mitigate its harm, and encourage efforts to reduce waste at a larger scale.
Here's our conversation with Raine — Enjoy!
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Why is Skip The Stuff critical?
There’s an insane amount of single-use waste in landfills, the ocean, rivers, and parks. There’s a never-ending stream of stuff going out there. This is a simple piece of legislation to mitigate the problem.
What are the next steps for Skip The Stuff?
I have a special place in my heart for working on issues in New York. We have much work to do to ensure Skip The Stuff is adequately implemented. We are already hearing big gaps in how it’s being rolled out depending on location. We must work with restaurants: Are they aware? Do they even know they don’t have to buy and stock plastic items?
Implementation isn’t a sexy name, but it's useless if the idea is great on paper but doesn’t work. And we need to bring the bill from the city level to statewide.
When did you become a more environmentally conscious activist?
I have been environmentally aware for a long time, since I was an early teenager. When Inconvenient Truth came out in 2006, I was terrified. I focused on my impact by switching up what I bought to reduce plastic. In New York, I can take the train and walk.
But Skip The Stuff lit a fire in me around the power of local action. People don’t realize you can call and talk to your local lawmakers.
You can send emails or pick up the phone. People are willing to engage. That was an eye-opener for me. There are simple things you can do and lean into your skillset to see the ripple effects of your actions. It makes me feel powerful.
And the financial benefit is there for restaurants too.
Thanks to this, some restaurants in LA save about $3,000 per year. They operate on razor-thin margins, so that’s an excellent cost saver.
What role do you think choice architecture plays in fighting climate change and pollution? Designing society in a way where it’s easy for people to make the right choices?
Great question and topic. Because of decades of misinformation and crazy marketing campaigns, there’s a misconception that this problem falls on us. We hear, “Reduce your carbon footprint.” That’s important, we should make good decisions, but the individuals shouldn’t shoulder the burden. We need the government to set strong regulations to care for the people and the planet. We need businesses held accountable for their actions, and then we need people to do their part.
When we’re used to ordering takeout with plastic utensils, that becomes the default. Even people who mean well might forget to tell the restaurant not to include the fork.
So it’s less about your responsibility and more about changing people’s hearts, minds, routines, and subconscious on a wider scale.
At AGO, what did you learn working with human rights organizations in Southeast Asia?
I’ve seen big changes come from small places. You don’t need massive corporations spending millions. I’ve seen a lot of super dedicated people trying to make something wonderful, and the impacts can be far-reaching. That experience now serves as a model for the rest of my life. We worked mainly with nonprofits in Thailand and Myanmar. People banded together against crazy odds.
What’s a good book you recommend?
Jennie Romer’s “Can I Recycle This? A guide to Better Recycling and How to Reduce Single-Use Plastics.” It’s a fantastic resource. She has a kid’s version coming out. I was disappointed to learn how much cannot be recycled from her book. We’ve all been lied to. There’s misinformation about plastic, where many think the little chasing arrows in a triangle on all plastic means you can recycle it. That’s how I grew up.
In recent years, I realized most plastic can’t be recycled. I follow Sims Municipal Recycling on social, they have a great channel to get people to know about local recycling guidelines and give free tours. I also enjoyed Naomi Klein’s On Fire. She’s an amazing writer. That’s a book I come back to often.
I read you are passionate about outer space, rocket launches, and the universe. What interests you there?
As a kid, for my 10th birthday, I got a book on space. It was not an encyclopedia, but it tackled the solar system, how the universe was created, and all the objects. I read that book to death. I can picture it so clearly in my mind. I poured over that book. It was gorgeous. All these images. We’ve made so much progress since I got that in 2000. Just look at the James Webb Space Telescope images.
It's compelling to think about where all of this came from. Carl Sagan said, “We’re made of star stuff.” Everything in them is in us. It’s so beautiful. I am a big appreciator of space. I love looking through a telescope to see the rings of Saturn. It’s a life-long love of mine and an appreciation of Earth’s uniqueness.
Do you stargaze often?
When I travel, I love to be in dark places. I have a cherished memory of being on the shores of the St. Lawrence River in Quebec, seeing the most stars I have ever seen. It was unbelievable.
It’s a grounding exercise to zoom out and consider how all this got here, where we are, and what the universe is. Does this appreciation play into your climate work and love for the air we breathe, the ground we stand on?
Yes, it’s a healthy appreciation for where we are. I’d love to keep Earth wonderful. I care deeply about the reusable approach to space travel, like SpaceX’s. The International Space Station does incredible experiments for life on Earth. We must get out there and learn. It’s critical.
What gives you climate optimism that we can do this?
The people. The change that so many people roll out. At the end of the day, our progress is the result of people deciding to act. There are moments when things feel dark and hopeless, but when we move the ball forward a little bit, we are reminded of the fact that there are so many amazing people fighting the good fight.
We have some rough years ahead. Even if we change the direction of emissions tomorrow, we’ve already locked ourselves into years of extreme weather and intensity. I enjoy being alive. I am happy to be a resident of planet Earth. I wake up every day and try to find the little ways to move the ball forward. There are so many people doing the same.
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Excellent news to hear about this law! Thank you to everyone who pressed for it! What a big step in the right direction for NYC not only for its own waste stream, but to pave the way for others to enact similar legislation.