East End villages join campaign to cut takeout plastic waste

Five East End villages have lined up behind Skip the Stuff, a campaign that asks restaurants, food establishments and delivery customers to stop automatically bundling single-use plastic utensils and other extras with takeout orders. East Hampton Village, Quogue Village, Sag Harbor Village, Sagaponack Village and Southampton Village are taking part.

The change is meant to be simple at the counter and on the phone screen: no more automatic forks, knives, spoons, napkins or condiment packets unless the customer wants them. On the East End, where summer dining and tourism can quickly multiply packaging waste, officials and advocates are trying to keep less plastic headed to landfills, waterways and beaches.

That matters for places where trash is hard to contain once it leaves the bin. Harbors, marinas and shoreline stretches across Suffolk County can carry small items far from the restaurant that handed them out, and plastic utensils are part of that waste stream. The campaign pushes a habit shift on both sides of the transaction. Customers have to ask for what they actually need, and restaurants have to make the low-waste choice the default.

For small businesses, the effort can also trim costs. Fewer automatic utensil kits mean fewer disposables to buy, stock and hand out with every order, which can matter during the heavy summer takeout rush on the South Fork and around Sag Harbor.

Sag Harbor’s local law file described Skip the Stuff as a growing national movement to reduce unnecessary plastic waste in takeout and delivery orders, and said the Sag Harbor Village Environmental Advisory Committee identified it as a priority. Surfrider Eastern Long Island said Sag Harbor passed a Skip the Stuff ordinance, and East Hampton Village passed a Skip the Stuff initiative, giving the campaign a policy foothold across the East End.

Southampton Village also tied the effort to Sheila Peiffer, chairwoman of its environmental and sustainability committee, as the villages framed the campaign as a coordinated summer push to prevent plastic pollution. The message to restaurant owners and takeout customers is direct: keep the extras out unless someone asks, and send less plastic into Suffolk County’s waste stream in the first place.