There’s been a lot of conversation over the past few years about how to manage take-out food containers to avoid environmental impacts. We think there’s an option that protects the environment and keeps to-go meals such as plate lunches affordable and convenient.

First a little background. Plate lunches and other take-out meals in Hawaii tend to be served in polystyrene foam food containers due to their light weight, low cost, and ability to keep hot foods hot and cold food cold. Foam containers are the only type of food container to be manufactured here in Hawaii.

After they’re used, foam food containers still have value as one of the best fuels for Oahu’s HPOWER waste-to-energy facility. This creates a complete solution where foam containers are made locally, used locally and then create electricity locally.

There aren’t any other easy options for disposing of food containers in Hawaii. None of our islands currently has or is planning for a composting or recycling facility that accepts food waste. If compostable or recyclable containers are mandated in Oahu they will go into the HPOWER facility, which means that all the extra cost and effort to switch containers will go to waste.

Now back to the bigger issue: how to best protect our environment. There’s been growing concern about controlling our litter and trash so that it doesn’t add to the marine debris floating in the Pacific Gyre. This in turn has generated controversy over whether to ban foam food containers.

It is good that we are thinking about how to preserve our precious ocean habitat. However, focusing on food containers doesn’t really accomplish much. If we ban one type of container, we will use just as many food containers of another type, and none of them will be composted or recycled. All a ban really does is create a false sense that something was accomplished, along with increasing costs for local restaurants, which means higher prices for to-go meals.

Instead of forcing this switch, we can kokua on how we can reduce litter and keep trash out of the water. We should use our aloha spirit to encourage solutions. Rather than focusing on what trash is made of, we can encourage everyone to make sure that trash goes into the trash can.

To do this, we have organized Malama 808, a coalition of local restaurants and businesses that want to help to improve our local environment. Malama 808 is about what everyone can do to help protect the natural beauty of our islands, both onshore and offshore. With a little extra thought, all of us — both businesses and customers — can make our islands a cleaner place.

We want to encourage our customers and employees to do simple acts of personal responsibility that can result in less trash on our streets, and thus less trash ending up in the ocean. No matter what the trash is made of, we want everyone to take responsibility to get it into the trash can or recycling bin.

There’s no reason to make life less convenient or more expensive. Let’s be good neighbors and work out a win-win for our islands.

Gregg Fraser is executive director of the Hawaii Restaurant Association.