TAKEAWAY restaurants in Woking are being environmentally irresponsible by delivering unwanted food in plastic pots that have to be thrown away, a resident says.

Sarah Staniford, who lives with her partner and two children near the town centre, said she recently emptied out more than 100 unwanted pots from her fridge, throwing the contents into her bin and then rinsing out the pots before putting them into the recycling.

“We ended up with a whole drawer with all these different dipping sauces and other things in the fridge. Then I got my new energy tariff, which is through the roof. I’d learned that one of the biggest energy drainers is the fridge, so I decided to empty it out,” Sarah said.

She said the pots had accumulated over many months as she and her partner work long hours and get takeaways one or two nights a week.

“There never seems to be an option to request no sauce. It seems absolutely senseless to me that these companies insist on sending you out sauces that you don't even want.

“What an absolute waste,” she said.

Sarah said most of the pots came from Domino’s Pizza, which has holes in the boxes for dips.

“There’s not an option online to request no dip. You’re having to bin the food item as well as having the plastic waste. I was thinking of boxing all these sauces up and sending them to Domino’s head office.”

Sarah said she and her family also order food from German Doner Kebab, which does allow you to say you don’t want sauce on your food.

“But they still send three or four sauces in separate little pots. You either throw all of it in the bin, which I imagine a lot of people do, or you have to scrape the sauce into the food bin, wash out the pot and put it into recycling,” Sarah said.

She said the family also orders Japanese food from Sokury in Goldsworth Road.

“If you order any of the main dishes, you have to have either edamame beans or miso soup. You can’t proceed with your order unless you tick one of those.

“None of us like the soup. I quite like the beans, but not everyone does, so some ends up in the bin. There’s no option to say you don’t want the beans or soup.” 

A Domino’s spokesman told the News & Mail: “Unused dips are great for keeping in the cupboard and have a best before date clearly displayed on the pot, so customers can also enjoy the garlicky goodness whenever they want to.

“Customers can get in touch with their local store to request a dip is removed from the pizza box, but this rarely happens given its popularity.”

Sudip Dalal, manager of German Doner Kebab in Chertsey Road, apologised for the delivery of the unwanted sauces and said it shouldn’t have happened. He said it had been mistake, either in the store or by the delivery driver and offered Sarah a free kebab.

Sun Kim, the owner of Sokury said customers are able to add a note on their order form asking that their delivery not include edamame beans or miso soup.