Ask Subway Franchise to Switch from Plastic Bags to Paper Bags

Dear Mr. Chidsey,

The Subway restaurant is a favorite of millions of people in many countries, and that is great. Unfortunately, however, Subway is also a major contributor to the plastics pollution that is inflicting harm to countless wildlife around the globe. More specifically, the single-use plastic bags that Subway places its sandwiches in and hands them to all its customers is a major contributing factor to the ever-increasing plastics pollution that is harming wildlife.

As you know, Mr. Chidsey, Subway sells over 7,000,000 sandwiches every day of operation, which adds up to over 2.5 billion single-use plastic bags dispensed by Subway into the environment every single year (https://www.entrepreneur.com/slideshow/280957).

True, plastic bags are technically recyclable, but hardly any of them get recycled, and thus nearly all of them end up in landfills or float around in the environment, with devastating consequences for wildlife. For example, it is estimated that over a million seabirds alone are killed by plastic pollution each year (UNESCO.org).

Of course, Subway is not the only company who dispenses plastic bags into the environment. Unfortunately, there are many companies that do the same. However, we are hoping that Subway will take the lead on this worthwhile goal of ending the practice of dumping hundreds of billions of pieces of plastics into our fragile environment every single year. Such a lead will most likely enhance Subway’s success as a business.

There are two alternative steps that Subway could take to ameliorate this problem:
A) The best alternative would be for Subway to do away with the use of plastic bags all together and instead use paper bags to place its sandwiches in before handing them to the customers. Paper bags may not be as versatile as plastic bags for such uses, but in terms of versatility of use, paper bags represent an acceptable alternative, an alternative for which the benefits to life far outweigh its disadvantage of lesser versatility. Also, although paper bags have a higher initial cost to the environment in the production process than paper bags, there is no arguing that plastics disposed in the environment have a much more harmful effect on wildlife than disposed paper bags.

B) Offer Subway customers choices:
a) No bag at all (especially for customers who will eat inside Subway restaurants);
b) a paper bag; or
c) a plastic bag (the currently used one).

Currently, Subway restaurants automatically place sandwiches in plastic bags without even asking customers if they want one or not. We hope that if customers are asked and given options other than plastic bags, they will opt for the better alternatives.

Mr. Chidsey, we are sure that you too are troubled by the harm that plastic bags inflict on wildlife. That is why we are pleading with you to please do your very best to switch to paper bags in place of single-use plastic bags in Subway restaurants.

Thank you!