A new “Save-The-World” option just appeared on GrabFood unannounced. What’s it do?

So one of our readers (we have dozens of them, DOZENS) was getting his GrabFood fix, when he noticed this new feature that no one seemingly saw before. It was an option…. to Save the World?

Now being the future award winning journalists that we are here at Cilisos, we decided to do some checking and while it was pretty uncommon for now, we did manage to come across a few other options that did include a ‘Save the World’ option laa. In case you couldn’t understand how it works from the image above, by selecting to ‘Save the World’ when you make an order on GrabFood, you can help to cut waste by not having excess cutlery and napkins sent to you if you don’t need it.

It does seem as tho that not every vendor has it, and for those who do, not all items on the menu will have it. Then again, it’s limited reach for now could just be that GrabFood’s testing the waters thru a pilot program laa.

And judging from the reaction that Omar – the reader who told us about it – had about the Save the World option, it’s certainly a great start from GrabFood that they could hopefully continue to improve.

“Love the convenience of GrabFood but I got a mountain of unused cutlery and napkins at home. This defo helps soothe the guilt, although food still comes in multiple thick paper bags that look suspiciously worse for the environment” – Omar, Cilisos reader and GrabFood orderer

There are millions of GrabFood orders every month

We don’t have the exact statistics on how many GrabFood orders are made, but we can provide some rough guesses laa.

Late last year, GrabFood reported that in Indonesia, 13 million orders of just ayam geprek (we figured it’s a type of chicken dish) alone were made in 2018. Meanwhile, in Singapore, over 7000 orders of just burgers and pizza were made during the World Cup final. Now we’re not Singapore or Indonesia, but that should kinda give you a rough idea about the volume of GrabFood deliveries made every month. Also, Malaysians love fried chicken and bubble tea.

But with the sheer volume of orders happening every day, there’s going to be A LOT of napkins, cutlery and plastic containers being sent around too. You probably don’t need to be reminded by now about how bad straws can be for the environment, but it’s also perhaps important to remember that takeaway food boxes and the various single-use plastics that come with it are just as bad, if not worse.

Now we aren’t calling for the outright banning of plastics, but reducing our use of single-use plastics when possible – such as the plastic spoons and forks that come with your GrabFood order – could be vital in the long run when it comes to helping the environment. You could still order your daily GrabFood fix to the office, but if you have your own fork and spoon, then by choosing the ‘Save the World’ option you’ve already done something positive.

Of course, we’d like to point out again that GrabFood’s ‘Save the World’ option is currently just testing out the feature, so if you think that it’s a good idea and want them to keep it, let them know! Tell them on social media, tag them on Twitter and bawang them on Facebook so that you can feel less guilty about getting that fried chicken and boba!