step one: participate

I often want to tell people and companies what's on my mind regarding their plastic usage. What stops me? Mostly I don't think people will listen or that I will not make any change-I'm just one person after all. Some people are very good at writing letters to bring about change and they are extremely inspirational to me, like Beth from www.fakeplasticfish.com.
Well today I made a comment about the packaging used at my standby I-haven't-eaten-lunch-yet-and-it's-3:00 lunch place in a an online survey my receipt asked me to participate in (whenever I could win $1000 or free food I am a sucker for surveys.)

They said:
If there are any other comments you would like to share about your most recent visit to Rubio's, please enter your comments below.

So I said:
I would really encourage you to stop using plastic in your food packaging. Your use of plastic actually limits what I am willing to buy at your restaurant. I only order tacos because they comes wrapped in paper. I always tell the counter worker not to put my order in a plastic bag, but you also use a lot of other plastic (i.e. plates, clam shell containers, straws, salsa dishes) that could be replaced with more environmentally friendly options. Thank you for taking my comment into consideration. Progressive thinking in terms of eliminating plastic packaging will benefit our collective health and environment.

So, the lesson here is: Step one-participate and tell them your opinion. I hope step two will be-watch change happen. Of course we will need a lot of participation in step one in order to see step two come to fruition.