Local Los Angeles government officials are putting a halt to climate change by restricting the distribution of ketchup packets, Fox News reported.
A recently finalized ordinance would restrict restaurants with 26 or more employees from providing ketchup and mustard packets with a customer’s meal. From here on out, customers must request their condiments.
The ordinance will apply to restaurants by April of 2022.
“If we are to overcome the extreme climate challenges we face, we will have to alter or otherwise transform all our habits relating to fossil fuel products, including plastics, and our essential natural resources, like forests,” said ordinance co-author and council-member Paul Koretz in a press release. “Skipping the stuff to stop the frivolous waste of napkins and plasticware is another step forward as we work together towards a healthier future that can sustain us all.”
Koretz previously claimed that restaurants that switched to by-request utensils saved between $3,000 and $21,000 per year, Spectrum News reported.
California’s Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a similar ordinance in October. It will go into effect by June of 2022. The state law also restricts the distribution of plastic straws.
This ordinance came as a result of a request made by the Los Angeles city council in March 2021.
According to Fox News, “the ordinance would ultimately apply to all plastic products in a restaurant, including plastic utensils, as well as limiting the use of napkins, toothpicks and other single-use items.”
If restaurants do not heed the ordinance, they will be fined $25 for each day of noncompliance with an annual limit of $300.
Food delivery services such as DoorDash and UberEats are also obliged to comply with the ordinance as well.
