Fast Food Wasteland Project
1.Choose a fast-food restaurant to study. Arrange to spend 1 hour at the restaurant with 2 to 4 of your classmates to gather data.
Sonic
2.Throughout this study, be as quiet and as unobtrusive as possible, and avoid aggravating the restaurant management or customers.
3.At the restaurant, observe how food is packaged as it is served. Make notes about the type of packaging used, paying particular attention to the following questions:
a. What are the packages made from?
The package it made out of plastic, paper, and cardboard
b. How many layers of packaging are used for each food item?
About 2 or 3
c. Do servers provide utensils, condiments, and napkins, or do customers help themselves? How are the condiments packaged?
Servers provide untensils
4. Choose a centrally located trash container and observe it for 30 minutes. Count the number of people who deposit trash in the container in that time. Makes notes about how frequently you see items other than empty packaging (food waste, unused napkins, condiment packages, etc.) go into the trash container.
Many people throw away trash and A LOT of unnecessary packaging. About 20 people threw away trash in 30 min.
5. Estimate the total number of customers per day as follows:
Take the number of people who visited your trashcan in 30 minutes. Multiply this number by 2, and then multiply it by the number of hours per day the restaurant is open.
10x2x18=360
Multiply this result by the number of trashcans per restaurant. Finally, assume that each person deposited trash for an average of 2 customers, and multiply by 2 to obtain the total to obtain the total number of customers per day.
360x2x2=1440
6. Estimate what waste items--cups, straws, tray lines, etc.--are thrown away, by the average customer. Based on this estimate, how many of each item would be thrown away each day?
About 10. 1440x10=14400 items thrown away each day.
7. Are separate recycling containers provided for the customers? If so, do signs on the container make it clear which waste items are supposed to go into the recycling containers and which go to the trash?
No recycling containers are not provided.
8. Summarize your findings. Create a table that shows your statistical data and include a description of the types and amount of waste generated at the restaurant you visited. Based on your findings, suggest ways in which the amount of trash could be reduced.
I ate at Sonic on February 20th at 4pm. I found out that ~14400 items are being thrown away each day. This is a very large amount of waste and none of it can be recycled because Sonic does not provide a recycling bin. Everything that Sonic uses to pack the items is made out of plastic, cardboard, and paper. Sonic has many unnecessary layer to their food items, one way we can avoid producing a large amount of a type of paper waste is to take one layer off of the burgers they sell. No matter if you are eating inside and not taking food to-go, Sonic hands your food in a bag as if you were taking it to-go and we can reduce the amount of paper bags we use by not doing this unless the person is eating to-go. We can recycle all of the paper bags that most of them probably have been only touched for like two seconds and then thrown away.
Sonic
2.Throughout this study, be as quiet and as unobtrusive as possible, and avoid aggravating the restaurant management or customers.
3.At the restaurant, observe how food is packaged as it is served. Make notes about the type of packaging used, paying particular attention to the following questions:
a. What are the packages made from?
The package it made out of plastic, paper, and cardboard
b. How many layers of packaging are used for each food item?
About 2 or 3
c. Do servers provide utensils, condiments, and napkins, or do customers help themselves? How are the condiments packaged?
Servers provide untensils
4. Choose a centrally located trash container and observe it for 30 minutes. Count the number of people who deposit trash in the container in that time. Makes notes about how frequently you see items other than empty packaging (food waste, unused napkins, condiment packages, etc.) go into the trash container.
Many people throw away trash and A LOT of unnecessary packaging. About 20 people threw away trash in 30 min.
5. Estimate the total number of customers per day as follows:
Take the number of people who visited your trashcan in 30 minutes. Multiply this number by 2, and then multiply it by the number of hours per day the restaurant is open.
10x2x18=360
Multiply this result by the number of trashcans per restaurant. Finally, assume that each person deposited trash for an average of 2 customers, and multiply by 2 to obtain the total to obtain the total number of customers per day.
360x2x2=1440
6. Estimate what waste items--cups, straws, tray lines, etc.--are thrown away, by the average customer. Based on this estimate, how many of each item would be thrown away each day?
About 10. 1440x10=14400 items thrown away each day.
7. Are separate recycling containers provided for the customers? If so, do signs on the container make it clear which waste items are supposed to go into the recycling containers and which go to the trash?
No recycling containers are not provided.
8. Summarize your findings. Create a table that shows your statistical data and include a description of the types and amount of waste generated at the restaurant you visited. Based on your findings, suggest ways in which the amount of trash could be reduced.
I ate at Sonic on February 20th at 4pm. I found out that ~14400 items are being thrown away each day. This is a very large amount of waste and none of it can be recycled because Sonic does not provide a recycling bin. Everything that Sonic uses to pack the items is made out of plastic, cardboard, and paper. Sonic has many unnecessary layer to their food items, one way we can avoid producing a large amount of a type of paper waste is to take one layer off of the burgers they sell. No matter if you are eating inside and not taking food to-go, Sonic hands your food in a bag as if you were taking it to-go and we can reduce the amount of paper bags we use by not doing this unless the person is eating to-go. We can recycle all of the paper bags that most of them probably have been only touched for like two seconds and then thrown away.