Before the advent of cheap, single-use take away packaging, legend has it that Australian families used to bring saucepans to their local Chinese restaurant to pick up their Friday night take-out. Until the early 1980s, when concerns about ink contamination outlawed it, fish and chips came wrapped in old newspapers.
These days, Australians’ love affair with caffeine has made reusable coffee cups ubiquitous, and most of us have a stack of tupperware at home for school lunches. Yet fronting up to the salad bar or deli counter with your own container still feels a bit weird.
Australians produce 3.2m tonnes of plastic waste each year, government data shows, with most being sent to landfill. About 39% of the nation’s plastic waste is packaging, including 27,800 tonnes of single-use takeaway containers and 25,500 tonnes of plastic bags annually – that’s about the weight of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Some states like South Australia and Western Australia have banned food and drink containers and cutlery made from plastic. But there are no laws in Australia preventing customersfrom bringing their own vessels to food retailers. Individuals and workplaces can choose to use reusable food containers and crockery for takeaway, catering and events, with systems and container exchanges helping to make the shift easier.
A decade ago, Bianca Cottle, the founder of BYO Containers – a volunteer-run website that maps businesses open to customers bringing their own packaging – noticed that people in zero waste groups on Facebook were confused about their options. “A big part of what I was seeing was people who weren’t sure what they could do or what was fair to ask. I wanted to provide some knowledge and give people the confidence to give it a go.” Eight years and 2,000 businesses ready to accept reusable containers later, she has some tips.
Start with what you have
There’s no need to rush out and buy any special equipment to get started, Cottle says. “If you’ve got Tupperware in your cupboard use that.” Some netted bags for fresh produce at the supermarket and old jars are also useful, she says. But she does caution that single use plastic take-away containers that you might have left over from a meal service order won’t do, “those aren’t fit for purpose”. Made from less durable plastics they degrade more easily making them difficult to adequately clean and more likely to leach harmful chemicals into our food.
Asking for your takeaway in a reusable container might feel awkward at first but Cottle says that asking before you place your order and explaining what you’re trying to achieve is essential. Cafes are used to accepting reusable coffee cups but for takeaway lunches like pasta, rice and noodle dishes or salads it may be something they haven’t encountered. “Sometimes stores might just throw out a line that it’s not legal, but it is.”
Their biggest concern could be cross contamination (so make sure your container is sanitary). At the end of the day Cottle stresses it is at the venue’s discretion. If you are knocked back she suggests accepting that in good faith, or perhaps asking to have a chat with a manager, encouraging them to look into the legislation themselves and seeing if they might be open to it next time.
Places like butchers, fishmongers and delis may not be unaccustomed to accepting BYO containers, but as long as your receptacle is clean and dry there is no legal reason they can’t oblige. Cottle suggests hanging back if there is a queue and allowing others to go first so when you do ask, service staff have time to consider your request clearly and not feel under pressure. “You don’t want it to become a rushed, clumsy encounter,” she says.
Test out easy foods first
“Sushi rolls are really easy,” Cottle says. She’s yet to encounter a purveyor of handrolls that isn’t happy to pop them in whatever container is offered. Bakery items, sandwiches and even burgers are also easy enough to slip into a lunchbox if you ask ahead.
At the supermarket, start by bringing along your own mesh bags for produce. Most supermarkets even sell them in-store. At the bakery a cotton bag or even an old pillow case are lightweight alternatives to disposable options.
If you often buy meals from a local takeaway, Cottle says a tiffin – a stackable set of metal containers popular on the Indian subcontinent – can be a good investment and are usually very welcome.
How workplaces can support reuse
While bringing your own lunch to the office might be economical, carting tupperware to and from work can be annoying and gross. Returnr, a reusable container scheme founded in 2018 has a no-fuss solution. Returnr’s workplace kits offer a shared pool of reusable receptacles of all shapes and sizes that can scale to any business size. The idea is employees can grab a coffee cup, bento box or bowl to use whenever they want to step out for provisions during their work day. When they’re done, it goes into the dishwasher and back into the storage station provided, ready for someone else to use.
The vast majority of Returnr’s products are made from stainless steel, a product the company’s design director, Brett Capron, says outperforms other materials when it comes to reuse and recycling. It is 100% recyclable and in Australia about 90% of all metal waste is recycled compared to just 12% of plastic. “A stainless steel product will last for thousands and thousands of uses … it’s an amazing material that just bounces back time after time after time.”
As employers continue to try to lure employees back to the office, Capron believes little extras like knowing there’s clean, sustainable lunch packaging options for one’s take-away can make it feel “just a bit more appealing”.
• This article was amended on 23 March 2026 to correct the surname of Bianca Cottle.
