Steps towards more sustainable sushi

Jeremy Green with Nuri & Maru’s Anna Chang

Nuri & Maru: Cutting out plastic, one tray at a time!

We all love to eat fresh sushi, but we don’t love all the one-use plastic items that it can generate. While sushi containers and the like can be recycled, ultimately, recycling is an imperfect and energy-intensive process. It’s so much better, for us and our world, when we can avoid using plastic in the first place.

“I’m not perfect, but I generally try to use a plate. I hate using plastic, it’s so wasteful.” says carpentry student Jeremy Green. “Only a small fraction of the plastic we use is recycled. We’re on an almost irreversible path to trashing the ocean.”

Here at Unitec we have set ourselves some big goals to reduce our organisational ecological footprint – and this involves encouraging our suppliers to do the same, including operators who sell food on campus.

Major change can happen when we take many small steps in the right direction. So it’s great that we can report on some positives changes that have been made at the Mt Albert campus sushi shop Nuri & Maru.

Jeremy Green: “It’s good that the sushi shop encourages the use of plates and provides free miso soup in bowls.”

“We wanted to reduce plastic waste and offer more choices for our customers”, explains Nuri & Maru store manager Anna Chang.

Changes include the introduction of a sushi cabinet with pick and mix sushi together the introduction of plates. Allowing customers to choose their own combination of sushi helps reduce food waste. And every time someone chooses a plate over plastic, it avoids another single-use plastic tray heading to landfill or needing to be recycled.

“We discussed the new cabinet system a lot with staff at Unitec before deciding to do it, focusing on hygiene all the time,” says Anna. “We prepare the dishes so they are fresh and recommend people choose the plates instead of the plastic trays. Customers can still choose the plastic packs when they want to have a take-away or when the dishes are gone.”

Level 4 Language student Yujia Wong, Actor-in training, Jia Chiah and Nari & Maru store manager Anna Chang

Anna is stocking up on extra plates and is keen for the cabinet and plate option to be more widely used. For Unitec staff there are the extra options of bringing a reusable container for use in the store, and as the plate stocks increase, of taking plates away provided they are promptly returned after use.

So next time you’re grabbing sushi at Mt Albert campus, be sure to choose the better options. If you do end up using a single-use plastic sushi container, take a moment to dispose of it correctly by tipping any food scraps in the food waste bin and giving the container a quick wash before tossing it in recycling.