Just Salad’s Reusable Bowls Are Now Available for Pickup Orders

Don’t worry: they’re washed and sanitized between each use.

A person holds a Just Salad reusable bowl.
Just Salad
Just Salad

Many parts of the country were making great headway with regard to reducing waste like plastic bags and straws before the pandemic struck and priorities naturally shifted toward keeping things as sanitary as possible. Enforcement of New York City’s plastic bag ban, for example, was delayed by many months due, in part, to the pandemic. The ban finally went into full effect last fall, and we’re starting to see other strides toward sustainability once again, too. Just Salad, for one, is making reusable bowls available for online, off-premises orders, according to Nation’s Restaurant News

Just Salad is testing the service in its hometown of NYC, with chief sustainability officer Sandra Noonan telling the outlet “The waste piling up on the sidewalks in New York City is daily evidence that delivery waste is a problem, and it's here to stay, unless we tackle it head on.” 

Just Salad’s aim is “to prevent waste before it happens,” Noonan said. 

For $1, you get a reusable bowl (or, more precisely, many reusable bowls) that you can use for each salad order and return to participating stores (which, again, is presently limited to one location in NYC, but expected to expand) for cleaning and sanitation before the bowl is used again. So far, 30% of customers have opted in to the reusable option. The chain also released zero-plastic meal kits earlier this year.

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