It’s no secret that the hospitality sector is one of the biggest contributors to plastic pollution globally, and here at AZRAQ, we think all of those plastic utensils that they give away (you know, the ones that end up among the most common items found during costal clean ups) are pretty useless!
In 2016, Worldcentric.org estimated that 40 billion plastic utensils were used every year in the United States alone. The majority of these were thrown out after just one use and ended up in landfills and waterways… something must be done.
In order to highlight this problem, and hopefully get people to think twice about their usage, AZRAQ launched its #uselessutensils campaign in mid-2019 in partnership with Freedom Pizza, Lush Middle East, Carluccio’s and Beitfann Studio (Sustainable City). With your help, we collected approximately 60kg and over 30,000 plastic utensils in six weeks!
These #uselessutensils were handed over to our partner artist Mariska Nell and our partner schools, who each made a showpiece, illustrating the impacts of utensils on our oceans.
The theme for the showpieces focussed on the following statement:
““The hospitality sector is one of the biggest contributors to plastic pollution globally.””
We have awarded the prize winners as per the below:
People’s Choice Award First Prize Second Prize Third Prize
HOW YOU GOT INVOLVED!
You provided your drawer-full of plastic utensils that you’ve collected and did’t quite know what to do with, or even just a single plastic spoon that you wanted to keep away from landfill, to your friendly Freedom Pizza Delivery driver, nearest Lush store at Carluccio’s or dropped them off to Beitfann Studio between the 5th May and 15th June and joined us on our Instagram page using the hashtag #uselessutensils.
Additionally, you provided this letter (and still can) to food outlets providing unwanted #uselessutensils to determine if they will reconsider providing single use plastic utensils.
Finally, you followed us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram,