Case Studies

The Valley Shore YMCA holds the Cedar Lake Triathlon series each summer in Chester, Connecticut. At each event in the series, the YMCA provided plastic bottled water and disposable cups. ReThink Disposable helped them make the switch to reusable silicone water bottles and reusable cups instead! Our New England Zero Waste Organizer collected the used bottles and cups for sanitization and reuse at the following events - making 3 of the 5 events in the 2024 series zero-waste!

The House of Bread Soup Kitchen is in the center of Connecticut’s Capitol City and serves over 250 daily meals to food-insecure residents. They were using primarily donated disposable cups, bowls, and utensils. ReThink Disposable helped the House of Bread make the transition to 100% reusable service ware for all meals, saving the organization over $1,600 annually and keeping over 120,000 disposable items out of the trash each year.

Truro Community Kitchen (TCK) is a non-profit food provider on Cape Cod in Truro, Massachusetts that serves free and anonymous meals every week. By partnering with ReThink Disposable, they have eliminated 100% of their disposable plastics, preventing 12,000 disposable plastic items from entering the trash annually.

The Middletown Public School System consists of ten schools (eight elementary schools, one middle school, and one high school) and enrolls around 4,500 students. For many years, the Director of Food, Nutrition, and Wellness Services has eagerly taken on sustainability initiatives in the cafeterias such as the separating kitchen food scraps for composting with Blue Earth Compost, purchasing reusable cloth bags for the breakfast program, and implementing hard reusable plastic cafeteria trays. Now they are working with ReThink Disposable with the goal of phasing out all disposable dining ware.

Located in Fruitvale Village, Powderface serves the best beignets west of New Orleans, serving both traditional and vegan beignets. Powderface will not only divert over 77,000 single pieces of harmful disposable plastics every year but will also enjoy a $3,000 annual savings.

Parra’s is a traditional Mexican restaurant in the heart of the Fruitvale. Parra’s was already using reusable foodware for their dine-in guests but were still relying on plastic straws and sauce cups. Replacing them with stainless steel reusable foodware will positively impact the community diverting over 41,000 pieces of harmful disposable plastics annually.