Most of the restaurants by me already seem to use a few standard size food containers. Why do these containers need to be broken down into raw material and then reconstituted? If they were high quality enough, could they not just be sanitized and then repurchased by restaurants directly from the recycler? Seems like there'd be much less waste of material. The big question would be if the sanitation process would be not be more expensive than just remanufacturing the containers.
Plastic isn't very robust. I personally utilise a standard container size and wash and reuse it for my own purposes to avoid kitchen bags and such. But the lids crack as they get brittle after repeated washing and the plastic itself scuffs and looses its transparency and surface. It may actually be problematic to have scratched surfaces for bacteria and cleaning and the containers wouldn't look the same in the store even after one wash and refill.
Plastic just isn't good for reuse, it is not robust.
Yes good points, which is why I think the type of plastic matters. Rubbermaid, for example, makes a variety of high quality reusable plastic food containers.
The Just Salad restaurant chain in NYC will sell you a reusable plastic salad container that you can wash and bring to them to prepare your meal in and there doesn't seem to be any issue with food safety regarding those bowls. It's heavier duty than the clear disposable ones they give you otherwise.
There's certainly a usable life to anything, plastic will degrade over multiple washes and being battered with utensils. I'd expect well used ones would need to be retired but it should still be better than the current situation where they are primarily single use.
