GrabFood goes green by not offering plastic cutlery by default

In an effort to go green, plastic cutlery will no longer be provided automatically whenever you order from GrabFood. This is part of GrabFood’s long-term sustainability plan to reduce the usage of single-use plastic in Malaysia.

Effective 5th November 2019, orders on GrabFood will display the “Plastic Cutlery” option as disabled. If it is required, customers are still able to request for it by toggling the “Plastic Cutlery” switch when finalising their order.

According to Grab, they have piloted this feature for selected restaurants since early this year. From their findings, 60% of orders from these restaurants have opted not to receive single-use plastic cutlery. This according to them, it is a testament that consumers are environmentally conscious and they are satisfied by the positive initial response.

Grab has also signed the “No Plastic in Nature by 2030” pact with WWF to reinforce its commitment to be a more eco-friendly business. With the partnership with WWF, GrabFood will be introducing several initiatives and educational toolkits to assist restaurant-partners to adopt sustainable business practices and packaging.

According to Grab, there’s a large cost disparity between environmental-friendly packaging options versus normal plastic-based packaging. From now until the end of December 2019, Grab will contribute 10 sen towards a Green Fund for every GrabFood order that doesn’t include plastic utensils. The fund will be used to support their restaurant-partners to kick-start their efforts to adopt eco-friendly packaging at a better cost price.

Grab is also exploring the possibility with potential restaurants to use reusable tiffins and wheatstraw food containers as an eco-friendly packaging option. The idea of using reusable tiffins is rather interesting and this could potentially reduce plastic waste dramatically. We still don’t know how Grab plans to do this and who knows it could be somewhat similar to India’s Dabbawalas.