Business View Magazine | February 2019

13 THE FINAL STRAW: BEN & JERRY’S ANNOUNCES PLAN TO ELIMINATE SINGLE-USE PLASTIC IN SCOOP SHOPSWORLDWIDE B en & Jerry’s is mooooving away from single- use plastic.As a first step, the company will no longer offer plastic straws and spoons in anyof its more than 600 Scoop Shops worldwide in early 2019. The company also announced a plan to ad- dress plastic cups and lids used to serve ice creamby the end of 2020. Jenna Evans, Ben & Jerry’s Global Sustainability Manager, is leading the transition. She noted that Ben & Jerry’s Scoop Shops currently hand out 2.5 million plastic straws a year, and 30 million plastic spoons. If all the plastic spoons used by Ben & Jerry’s in the U.S. were placed end to end, they’d stretch from Burlington, Vermont to Jackson- ville, Florida. “We’re not going to recycle our way out of this prob- lem,” she said. “We, and the rest of the world, need to get out of single-use plastic.” “Single-use plastics are a pollution threat unlike anything we’ve seen before,” said Paul Burns, Execu- tive Director of the Vermont Public Interest Research Group.“Across the globe, discarded plastics are chok- ing our environment and threatening wildlife. The only solution is to stop using them. That’s why Ben & Jerry’s plan to move away from single-use plastics is exactly the kind of leadership we need. We urge other businesses to followBen& Jerry’s example and kick the plastics habit.” Ben& Jerry’s has alreadyembarked on its plan to get out of single-use plastic in its Scoop Shops: • August 2018—Scoop Shops made plastic straws available by request only.Many Scoop Shops had al-