A coalition called Long Beach Reuses is on a mission this October: keep 1,000 single-use plastic items out of the landfill — and they want you to join them.
The drive is called Bring Your Own Month. Since 2023, the city of Long Beach and several sustainability-focused community groups and businesses have teamed up to promote it each year.
“It just continues to build more momentum,” said Dalia Gonzalez, a spokesperson for the city’s Energy and Environmental Services Department.
Colossus bakery on Second Street — one of 20 local businesses to sign on — is participating for the first time. Throughout October, they and other bakeries, cafes, restaurants, coffee shops and even the Art Theatre, are encouraging people to bring their own reusable cups, containers and bags for anything they buy.
“We’re always excited when people bring their own cup or their own box or whatever it is, so I was super excited to participate,” said Colossus owner Kristin Colazas Rodriguez.
More than halfway through October, how successful have their efforts been?
Colossus offers a 25-cent discount to anyone who brings in a reusable cup. As of Oct. 15, 70 discounts have been given this month, according to Rodriguez. By comparison, they gave the same number of discounts over the entirety of September.
More broadly, the coalition is trying to track numbers across Long Beach by giving participating businesses stamp cards for customers to earn prizes and small bubble sheets to be marked each time someone brings their own reusable item.
Customers can collect stamps each time they forgo a single-use container, and they’re encouraged to turn in their stamp cards by Nov. 3 — regardless of how many stamps they collected — to be entered into a raffle for reusable water bottles, tickets to the Aquarium of the Pacific, T-shirts and more.
Businesses will also give their estimate of how many reusables they saw this month based on how many stamp cards were given out and how many bubble were colored in by customers.
According to Gonzalez, a total of 1,200 stamp cards have been distributed to participating businesses. Colossus has been the top participant so far, handing out 100 cards to customers.
Wyatt Smeaton, the coffee program manager at Wrigley Coffee, estimates that he’s been seeing four to six reusables each day during Bring Your Own Month, slightly higher than in other months.
Smeaton said he wants this to spur a larger movement.
“I hate thinking about the fact that the plastic cup is going to live longer than me,” he said. “My hope is that these things shift habits where it’s like, ‘Oh, of course, I bring my cup to the coffee shop.’”
Ultimately, that is the goal for the Long Beach Reuses Coalition as well.
“I think a lot of times we’re focused on cleanups, and those are really important, but we’re focused on those downstream solutions. Once the waste is here, what do we do with it?” Gonzalez said. “But I think this is really important because you’re focusing on actually creating solutions so that waste doesn’t exist in the first place.”
All of the businesses participating in BYO month accept reusables year-round. As of February, there are at least 53 businesses throughout Long Beach that accept reusables.
For more information about this initiative, visit the Long Beach Reuses Coalition’s website.