What a Small Town in Hawaii Just Did for the Future of Takeout

There is a city in Hawaii doing something the rest of the country has never done before, and we think it is worth talking about.

Hilo, Hawaii — a coastal city of about 50,000 people — is launching the nation's first comprehensive city-wide reusable to-go container program. It is called Ho'i, after the Hawaiian word for "to return," and it is exactly the kind of systemic, community-driven solution that gets us genuinely excited about the future of plastic reduction.

Here Is How It Works

Restaurants in Hilo will offer customers food in washable stainless steel containers instead of single-use plastic or compostable serviceware. Customers check out the containers the same way you would check out a library book, with a single tap of their phone at the point of ordering. When they are done, they return the container to one of 100 drop bins around the city. From there, vans pick them up and bring them to a central wash hub, where an industrial dishwasher cleans them before they go back to the restaurants. If you return the container, it costs you nothing. If you keep it, it costs $15.

The program is a partnership between Zero Waste Hawaii Island, a local nonprofit, and Perpetual, a Florida-based organization dedicated to helping cities build city-wide reusable serviceware systems. It is backed by over $3.7 million in seed funding from the EPA, private foundations and Hawaii County. Hilo is one of four U.S. pilot cities, alongside Galveston, Savannah and Ann Arbor.

Why This Matters Beyond Hawaii

Single-use foodware is one of the most stubborn sources of plastic pollution on our coastlines. Every festival, every farmers market, every Tuesday night takeout order generates a pile of cups, containers and lids that most people assume are being recycled but are almost certainly ending up in a landfill or worse, washing into our ocean.

The problem with most plastic reduction efforts is that they ask a lot of individuals without changing the underlying system. Reusable bags work because the infrastructure for using them is simple. But reusable takeout containers have never had a system behind them that made it easy enough for everyday people and small businesses to actually participate. Ho'i is trying to change that.

As one of the program's business participants put it, the shift has to happen at the system level. Individual companies cannot do it alone.

What This Could Look Like on the Coastside

We have been thinking about this a lot since we first came across the Ho'i program and the truth is Half Moon Bay is exactly the kind of community where something like this could work.

We are a small coastal city with a tight-knit restaurant community. San Mateo County already has a disposable foodware ordinance in place and Sea Hugger has been on the ground helping local businesses comply with it. We have the community relationships, the local trust and the mission to be the right organization to champion a pilot program like this on the Coastside.

We have started exploring what it would take to bring a permanent reusable container program to Half Moon Bay, including reaching out to local reuse organizations, the county of San Mateo and organizations involved in this Hilo effort. Would you like to be involved in seeing if a reuse program is possible on the coast? Email valerie@seahugger.org to join our Plastic Free Coastside team.

What You Can Do Right Now

We are in the early stages of exploring this idea and your voice matters in shaping whether and how it moves forward. Here is how you can help:

• Share this post with a local restaurant owner, a city council member or anyone who cares about keeping plastic off our beach

• Tell us what you think in the comments or on social media. Would you use a program like this in Half Moon Bay?

• Stay tuned because we will be sharing updates as this idea develops

The ocean does not have a recycling bin. Every container that skips the landfill is a win and we want to be the community that figures out how to make that happen at scale.

With love, The Sea Hugger Team