 One local restaurant has answered the call to reduce the use of single-use plastics voice takeaway services. Spice of India is teaming up with the Plastic Waste Free Islands project for a pilot to encourage sustainable consumption in St Lucia's food service industry. Jesse Leos has the details. Indian cuisine is on the menu, and you can now order the takeout in reusable food containers. The Plastic Waste Free Islands PWFI project through the Department of Sustainable Development has made available 49 reusable food service containers to a local restaurant, Spice of India, to boost their sustainable efforts at reducing single-use plastic consumption. In the pilot initiative, Spice of India commits to include the containers in an ongoing offer where patrons who opt for takeaway in a reusable food container will pay a small deposit when they order food from the restaurant. The deposit is paid back to the patron when they return the container. The PWFI project food service containers can be used up to 250 times, cleaned after every return under the strictest hygiene standards. Deputy Permanent Secretary in the Department of Sustainable Development, Silka Tobias, handed over the containers to restaurant owner Chef Adil Sherwani on behalf of the PWFI project. This will assist with our goal to reduce the country's dependence on single-use plastic food service containers by encouraging customers to avoid single-use plastics and using reusable containers for ready meals, takeaways and any food in bulk. This project will further assist with finding innovative solutions against plastic waste generation and leakages. The PWFI project is part of the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Global Close the Plastic Tap Program. With support from the Norwegian Agency for Development Corporation NORAD, the three-year project works in St. Lucia and five other islands of the Caribbean and Pacific. The project seeks to promote island circular economy and to demonstrate effective quantifiable solutions to addressing plastic leakage from small island developing states. Spice of India owner Chef Adil is pleased to align his enterprise with this cause. Anything to do for the environment, you know, we will do whatever it takes to save the environment and of course it's a cost-effective way for us and for our clients as well. So I'm very excited for this day and the staff are excited, the whole team is excited I'm glad to get it out so people can start patronizing it. Actually it works very good with the summit going on right now where we're trying to save the environment in the whole world and this goes a long way. So anything for sustainable development, Spice of India is up for it. The handover was held on November 3rd, 2021. More restaurants and food service providers are encouraged to introduce similar initiatives to reduce single-use food packaging. For the Department of Sustainable Development, I am Jesse Leons reporting.