Passing Policy Toolkit
Passing Policy
Our Serve Up Reuse campaign is about more than inspiring change—it’s about winning it. That means equipping changemakers with the tools they need to pass strong, community-backed reuse policies that hold up to industry pressure and deliver real-world impact.
Policy change doesn’t start in a city hall chamber — it starts in the community. Building support from neighbors, small businesses, students, and local organizations is key to making sure decision-makers feel the pressure and know the public is ready for reuse. This toolkit offers plug-and-play tools to help you do just that.
Whether you’re organizing support with sample letters and postcards, coordinating outreach with your elected officials, or digging into model ordinances and past case studies, this guide puts everything you need in one place. You’ll find policy trackers, legislative templates, and example policies from other groups to help you avoid reinventing the wheel — and focus on building momentum.
From activating supporters to navigating the legislative process, we’ve got your back. Let’s turn public pressure into policy — and serve up reuse, one ordinance at a time.
What’s in the toolkit?
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ALL POLICY TOOLS
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Example Templates for Policy Advocacy
- Sign-on Letters
- Use these templates to gather support from different constituency groups. You can make it a sign-on letter for organizations to add logos and signatories, or you can share the template with individuals and ask them to send a letter on their own. Some organizations collect letters at events and do the mailing themselves to ensure it gets sent.
- Sample Letter to Legislators for Organizations
- Sample Letter to Legislators from Individuals
- Sample Letter to Legislators from Businesses
- Email Action Alert Template
- Organizations with grassroots advocacy software can host the email action. To effectively set up an email action to legislators, begin by identifying the right people to contact (local or state electeds) and their email addresses. Share the list along with this template and invite people to craft a more personalized message if possible. Ensure the email provides states a specific call to action (like asking a legislator to support or oppose a policy) and includes the sender’s contact information to show they are a constituent.
- Example 1
- Example 2
- Postcard-to-Legislator Template
- Use this template to create a postcard action campaign. Decide what legislators to target and provide their names and addresses in a targets list. Design the postcard and accompany it with 2 to 3 short sample scripts for users to add. You can print out post cards and provide them to people. Ask people to host a post-card writing party, or order a bunch to fill out on their own.
- Sign-on Letters
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Evaluating Policy Impacts
- Showing electeds the positive impacts a policy has had in another community makes a very strong case for their support. Here you will find examples of positive impacts from:
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Model Policies
- The Story of Stuff Model Reusable Foodware Ordinance
- A comprehensive model policy for driving reuse in food service. Copy the whole thing or choose from the policies pertaining to reuse for onsite dining, take-out, events, venues, government facilities, ditching disposable plastic bottles, and disposable foodware.
- The Berkeley Plastic Free July City Council Resolution
- Asking a legislator to champion a reuse resolution is the first step to opening up the policy conversation among legislators and building support to get a policy enacted. This is a sample from the City of Berkeley.
- The Story of Stuff Model Reusable Foodware Ordinance
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Policy Resources
- The SOSP Reuse for Onsite Dining Policy Guide
- Use this guide to better understand the options in crafting a reuse for onsite dining policy.
- The Berkeley Ecology Center Policy Toolkit
- A primer on how a community-based advocacy effort can succeed in getting a reusable foodware policy enacted.
- Upstream Cups Charge Policy Factsheet
- Why charges for disposables.
- Sample Policy Factsheet from Reusable Oakland
- Advocates should bring fact sheets with them when lobbying on a policy. It helps ground the legislator in understanding what the policy is all about and why they should support it. This sample does not have the most up-to-date number of policies enacted. Check our reusable foodware policy tracker for an up-to-date list!
- ReThink Disposable District 7
- Partnering with the City of San Francisco, ReThink Disposable worked on converting a number of restaurants in a specific supervisor’s district to reusables. This report showed the supervisor that businesses in his district could save money if he supported a reusable foodware policy.
- The SOSP Reuse for Onsite Dining Policy Guide
