An Overview Of Our Solution
UPSTREAM sparks innovative solutions to plastic pollution by helping businesses and communities shift from single-use to reuse. We’re working for a world where people and planet are treated as indisposable and communities thrive on reusability, so we can get what we want without the waste.
We’ve been hard at work for nearly 20 years — ideating, co-creating and accelerating solutions to plastic pollution and throw-away culture with communities and businesses across America. We believe there’s a better way than throw-away, and we're building a throw-away-free movement through business, policy and cultural innovation.
- Population Impacted: 23,353,676
- Continent: North America
Prénom
Nom de famille
Type d'organisation
Courriel
Analyse du contexte
More than 1/3 of all plastic packaging winds up in the environment; and single-use food & beverage packaging comprises 2/3 of the 20 most-commonly found plastic pollution items. With Covid-19, more people are getting takeout and food delivery than ever, and single-use disposable usage has skyrocketed an estimated 250-300%.
Bioplastics and compostable packaging are presented as green substitutes to single-use plastic. But paper to-go boxes and bioplastic cutlery often require more energy, water and chemicals to produce than plastic. And they usually don’t effectively compost, so many composters don’t want them.
Any product meant to be used for minutes and then tossed is not sustainable or safe, regardless of its material. The real culprit isn’t single-use plastics; it’s “single-use” itself.
UPSTREAM helps solve plastic pollution in waterways by providing reuse systems and services – and re-norming business and consumer behavior, particularly in food service.
Décrivez la solution technique que vous voudriez voir le public cible adopter.
We’re building food service systems that eliminate single-use packaging in cities nationwide and disrupting the disposable take-out/delivery food-service paradigm through:
Business innovation: supporting venues & food service transitioning to reuse, while tracking packaging reduction metrics to quantify cost & waste savings. Pioneering reusable take-out & delivery systems to show how they work at scale, are cost effective for businesses and desirable for customers.
Policy models: making on-site dining disposable-free and providing for reusable to-go & delivery infrastructure; eliminating wasted accessories in take-out & delivery orders.
Culture-shifting campaigns & storytelling showing a better way than throw-away.
Décrivez votre intervention comportementale.
The behavioral intervention we are seeking is for people to participate in and normalize the new reuse economy being built by community activists, food service businesses, reuse service providers, and local governments. Here are some examples of how we are doing this:
1) Our Business Innovation pilots are testing models for reusable take-out to identify the best system and quantify the economics of reusable take-out to inform future policies.
2) We engaged a UX expert to help craft an online platform to seamlessly transition businesses from single-use to reuse anywhere in the country, during and post-covid.
3) We developed a Learning Hub with easy-to-access data supporting the environmental, economic and health reasons to shift to reuse and actively promote it through national networks and targeted audience outreach.
4) We know that itemized fees work better to motivate change in behavior, so our policy includes a provision to require fees for single-use take-out containers to be listed separately on the receipt so the consumer can directly see the cost of single-use.
5) We tell the stories of early adopter businesses, communities and governments through our podcast, videos, live streams, social, blogs and emails to let people know these solutions are out there now and scaling. This is based on the 51st Deer or Second Dancer strategy - behavior doesn’t change until the majority of the herd or the second dancer normalizes it.
Leviers comportementaux utilisés
Au besoin, veuillez expliquer comment vous avez utilisé le ou les leviers avec plus de détails.
UPSTREAM fuels impact & action via the Information Lever, sharing credible, current information that supports participation in the reuse economy & feeds demand for reuse. In our solutions-focused communications, we use Emotional Appeals & Social Influences to show a better way than throw-away – showcasing heroes of the reuse movement who empower & inspire our audiences. Working with food businesses, we apply Material Incentive. Our calculators show the projections & results of switching to reuse. Businesses can then make data-informed decisions about what works for their bottom line & the planet – which always points to reuse. When we use policy & business pilots in tandem, we also use Material Incentives, dis-incentivizing bad behavior (single-use) with a fee, and incentivizing participation in free reuse services. Finally, we develop policy models – Rules & Regulations – and use the information & training needed to enact them.
Décrivez votre mise en œuvre.
We are halfway through Year 2 of 3-year objectives engaging in the following:
BUSINESS INNOVATION: Providing scalable models for food service businesses to transition to reuse. Calculating the impact & marketing the change widely to seed new behaviors & attract business partners.
POLICY: Providing model reusable foodware policies to support communities in transitioning food service businesses to reuse & accelerating demand for reuse in take-out. Creating coalitions in target cities to pass & implement model policies. Growing & supporting the Reuse Movement through our National Reuse Network & Government Reuse Forum.
CULTURE CHANGE: Showing what a plastic-pollution-free world could look like by showcasing the heroes making it happen & inviting our audience to join in. Providing content to catalyze action & dialogue. Launching campaigns to make single-use uncool & reusable the new norm.
Enabling conditions include public concern & willingness to address the problem; broken & limited impacts of recycling systems/increased waste costs for municipalities; and plastic pollution brand audits proving to be a liability for major brands.
Success factors include high numbers of: reuse businesses, policies & populations impacted, and engagement rates among our audiences.
Covid was the obstacle in 2020. Each program area pivoted to continue adding value to our constituencies. Here’s how:
Business Innovation: shifted from working with large-scale venues in person to piloting reuse start-ups for to-go food, and bringing our services online.
Policy: worked to prevent temporary rollbacks for policy & health codes from becoming permanent; adjusted policy to account for restaurant closures and the hardships, and tackling the onslaught of ancillary items in take-out like plastic silverware, condiments & napkins.
Culture Change: debunked falsehoods by the plastic industry that single-use is safer.
Décrivez le leadership de votre solution. Qui dirige la mise en œuvre?
The leadership for the solution implementation will come from a wide range of stakeholders:
- UPSTREAM staff and contractors
- City officials (elected and staff)
- Food service owners and operators
- Reuse service providers (business leaders that develop and service the infrastructure)
- Creative agencies and advertising partners
- Community leaders and activists, including BIPOC and environmental justice leaders
- Local influencers
Principaux intervenants et partenaires du programme
Our efforts connect with the efforts of city officials, business and community leaders, to combat climate change, reduce litter and prevent pollution of local waterways. Similarly, our efforts dovetail with city and community leaders working on job creation, especially in developing and servicing green, climate-saving infrastructure and systems.
We work with NGOs, elected officials and staff, and business leaders in our target metro areas (San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York City, and in 2021 we are adding Honolulu, Portland, ME, Providence, and Boston) to:
- Help food service businesses shift from single-use to reuse for on-site dining.
- Build reusable service infrastructure for take-out and delivery with our business partners.
- Pass policies to make on-site dining disposable-free and reusable to-go / delivery the new normal.
- Create behavior-change campaigns to engage citizens/consumers around co-creating, participating in, and celebrating the new reuse economy.
We also provide space for these leaders to connect, learn and get support through our National Reuse Network (for NGOs, community leaders and reuse businesses - currently 252 members in 25+ states), and through our Government Reuse Forum (currently 169 members).
Qui a adopté le(s) comportement(s) souhaité(s) et dans quelle mesure?
To date, we have helped enact 19 reusable foodware policies (on hold during the pandemic). Soon, in 4 cities, no business will serve diners with disposables for on-site dining. In 7 jurisdictions customers will bring/borrow a reusable cup in order to avoid a charge for disposables. And in 18 cities, customers are asked to opt-in for extras like straws & utensils. In 2021, we plan to enact reusable foodware policies in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Boston, Washington DC, in counties across CA & 12+ other US cities.
We have not yet had a chance to measure behavior change, but we expect to report impacts based on baseline assessment and follow-up measurement of litter & waste. We do know that the plastic bag fee on which we modeled the fee for disposables works: San Mateo County found an 85% reduction in litter in storm drains; Washington DC found a 75% reduction in litter entering local waterways; and LA County found 95% increase in consumers using reusable bags.
Quel a été votre impact sur la pollution de l'eau?
Most of these policies were only recently enacted with implementation dates largely in 2020 that were then delayed due COVID. UPSTREAM will work to gather litter and waste reduction impacts measurements from these cities during 2021 and thereafter, once the policies have been implemented and data is collected. However, we know that plastic food and beverage packaging and bags comprise the top 8 beach litter items collected during US and International Coastal Cleanup Day. These policies take aim at reducing the most significant littered items, with the exception of cigarette butts. The California Bag Ban, which banned plastic grocery bags and implemented a charge for paper bags, resulted in a 60% of plastic bag litter on California beaches within the first year of enactment. We expect cup charges and accessories on request policies to have similar results on plastics that enter our waterways from land-based litter.
Quel a été l'impact de votre solution sur les problèmes d'équité?
The oil extraction & refinement required to produce plastic, plus its frequent incineration at end-of-life, disproportionately impacts the health of low income/communities of color living nearby – not least due to polluted water sources. Reducing plastic in the market is key to reducing these impacts.
We have worked to overcome resource/capacity challenges in impacted communities by bringing in funding for plastic pollution-based environmental justice (EJ) groups in LA (raising $40,000 in 2020); and we are continuing to identify funding for EJ participation in policy development.
EJ leaders support our policy models, especially those that exempt disposables charges for people receiving government subsidies. But bringing in more diverse perspectives is a top priority: we are interviewing EJ leaders, reviewing DE&I strategies, and developing a set of best practices for policy organizers.
Quels ont été les co-bénéfices environnementaux de votre solution?
Reuse beats single-use in every environmental metric where they’ve been compared: carbon intensity, global warming potential, energy consumption, ecotoxicity, water consumption, resource extraction, waste generation, litter and marine plastic pollution. The vast majority of Life Cycle Assessment studies of food service ware also show that reusables are better for the environment than single-use products and packaging.
Quels ont été les avantages connexes de votre solution par rapport au développement durable?
By focusing on reuse, we alleviate the financial burden on municipalities to continually process waste – and clean up what escapes collection systems & leaks into the environment.
Berkeley, CA had invested $3M in a stormwater system to capture all their packaging litter before adopting our Disposable Foodware & Litter Reduction Law. The first was a short term, unsustainable fix doing nothing to stop the litter flow; the second is a long term, sustainable, cost-effective approach.
Durabilité : Décrivez la durabilité économique de votre solution.
As a 501c(3) nonprofit, UPSTREAM works with businesses and policy advocates free of charge, “seeding and feeding” scalable reuse business models and policies nationwide. Our impact calculators and pilot studies prove to our constituents that cities and businesses will save money every time by switching to reuse.
UPSTREAM is in a growth phase, expanding (150% growth over the past 4 years) and diversifying our funding sources, which includes foundations, high-level donors, online donations, corporate sponsors, government grants and contracts. We aim to have 6 months+ of operating income in the bank to buffer against any income instability and will be here into the future to facilitate the expansion of the reuse economy.
Retour sur investissement : Combien a coûté la mise en œuvre de ces activités?
The projects described in this application represent the entirety of UPSTREAM’s work. We are a $1.1 million organization. We are actively working in regions with over 23 million residents, and our policy has passed in regions with over 1.2 million residents. These early adopter communities now serve as examples for others around the country. Given the enormous impact our policy work, in particular, will have on waste and plastic pollution – and tax dollars spent on clean-ups, wastewater and waste streams – in these metro areas in the coming years, this is a substantial return on investment (see the $3M investment Berkeley made in their stormwater system alone).
Comment pourrions-nous reproduire cette solution ailleurs avec succès?
UPSTREAM replicates solutions & policies through our “Lead, Seed, and Feed” model. Our policy program has produced dozens of fact-sheets, model local ordinances, and policy briefs that are shared widely with training support to all of the aforementioned Reuse Coalitions nationwide. Local activists, community groups, and government staff use these assets successfully at the local level to support policy work.
Through our business innovation work, we create case studies documenting best practices & results from businesses transitioning to reuse, and share them widely within the business community and food industry to continually prove that reuse wins for the environment & the bottom line.
With funding, we hope to integrate the impact calculator we are BETA testing with our reuse take-out & delivery pilots into an app/tech platform available to any business/institution/venue working to transition to reuse, even in communities where we don't have boots on the ground.