How One Popular Cape Cod Tourist Spot Is Tackling Plastics

Millions of travelers descend on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, each year, and many want to eat the same thing: seafood. One place they head is Seafood Sam’s in Sandwich, located near the scenic Cape Cod Canal and the iconic Sagamore Bridge. On a peak summer travel day, Seafood Sam’s serves as many as 3,000 people. They fill the 350 seats inside and 100 seats on the deck, dining on lobster roll, fried clams, and baked haddock. Until three years ago, they got their food on, or in, disposable dinnerware. Platters of seafood and fries came on paper plates. Chowder came in Styrofoam cups, Coleslaw in little plastic cups, and carryout food was packed in Styrofoam boxes. All of it was eaten with plastic utensils. Then, 25-year-old Timothy Lewis went to his dad, Jeff, the restaurant’s owner. “’We’ve got to stop this,’” Jeff Lewis recalled his son saying. The elder Lewis, a fan of documentaries like the BBC’s Blue Planet series, said he was convinced both by envir