Why are restaurants prohibited from refilling reusable cups?
| Friday, Oct 22 2010 01:53 PM
Last Updated Friday, Oct 22 2010 01:53 PM
Q: Most fast food chains' medium to extra-large drinks are in reusable plastic cups. Some of the chains let you bring the cups back in to get either a free refill or for a small fee you can refill your reusable plastic cup. However, lately when we have tried to reuse the plastic cups, we are told the Health Department no longer allows them to let customers bring in their own cups for a refill.
So is the Health Department not thinking green? What are we supposed to do with all of these plastic cups?
The fast food chains were smart because that is where we would frequent because we could refill our cups and not get another cup! Some of the recycling centers won't take them either, so are they supposed to be lost in our disposal sites for years and years and years?
-- D. Yungkurth
A: Donna Fenton, chief environmental health specialist at Kern County Environmental Health, responded:
The Public Health Department, Environmental Health Division, does not strictly prohibit the use of refillable cups. The California Retail Food Code, Section 114075 (a) -- Using clean tableware for second portions or refills -- allows an exception for customer refill cups when the following can be met: "refilling a consumer's drinking cup or container without contact between the pouring utensil and the lip-contact area of the drinking cup or container."
So while this exception is provided in the regulations, not all restaurants may be able to refill the cups in this safe and sanitary manner. If upon inspection our department found this to be the case, we would prohibit the refilling of customers' cups. Many times it is not our department that prohibits this practice but the restaurant or franchise's policy or protocols that does so.
