CONCORD, N.H. — Imagine takeout food but with less trash.
Four New Hampshire Seacoast restaurants are giving that idea a shot through a pilot program that offers reusable takeout containers instead of single-use carriers with the goal of reducing waste and protecting the environment from plastic pollution.
Betsy Samber, 26, owns Juniper Kitchen in Dover, said the program has been a success so far at her vegan restaurant.
“A lot of our customers are very eco-conscious and care about not creating a lot of waste. So I just knew it would be something that our customer base would be really supportive of and interested in and excited about,” she said.
Her restaurant received 50 free stainless steel containers through the pilot program called Reusable Seacoast. She said there’s been no issue with running out of containers and people have been diligently returning them.
Other participating restaurants include Ohana Kitchen and Ceres Bakery in Portsmouth and HiFi Burritos in Dover.
The initiative was spearheaded by Christina Dubin and Kristine Baber, who have worked on plastic issues together for years through a statewide environmental coalition called the New Hampshire Network. Dubin also chairs Seacoast Climate Action Now, the organization housing the pilot, and Baber is a cochair of the Dover Plastic Reduction Group.
The reusable program is the first of its kind in New Hampshire, as far as Dubin knows. .
The two said they already had built relationships with restaurants through a campaign called “NH Skip The Stuff” that encouraged restaurants to provide only single-use takeout items like cutlery and straws upon request.
After the pilot concludes at the end of September, Dubin said they will write case studies showing how much money the program saved, how much waste it reduced, and how frequently the containers were checked out. Their goal is to help expand reusable takeout options around the state.
Samber said the reusable container program has been easy to implement: customers download an app called FoodWare, which tracks the containers in a similar way to library books.
Customers can choose a reusable container when they order food to go. They use the FoodWare app to scan a QR code for the restaurant and a separate code for the specific container. Customers have two weeks to return the container to the restaurant to avoid a $15 fee.
The restaurant is responsible for washing and sanitizing the container after it’s returned.
“People are really grateful that we’re offering something like an alternative to compostable or disposable containers,” Samber said.
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Amanda Gokee can be reached at amanda.gokee@globe.com. Follow her @amanda_gokee.