Customer's photo of Chipotle order sparks outrage: 'The only solution is stop eating there'

If you're ever curious about the brilliance of nature, look no further than some of your favorite fruits and vegetables. Not only are they delicious, nutritious, and sustainable, but they're often cleverly designed. Just look at how bananas and oranges come with peels that help protect them from damage and are convenient to open when you're hungry.

So why mess that up with unnecessary waste?

That's the question posed by one Redditor in the r/Anticonsumption subreddit. In a viral post, they showed a small orange they received from Chipotle. Despite having an intact peel, the orange was given to the customer in a plastic container.

"Dear Chipotle," the original poster wrote, "oranges literally already have their own packaging."

Commenters shared Redditor's disbelief, with one referring to it as "today's WTF moment." However, given the prevalence of single-use plastic, this is not surprising.

The Nature Conservancy reported that half the plastic produced today is of the single-use variety. In recent years, Greenpeace said that only about 5% of plastic waste is recycled in the U.S. 

That creates major environmental concerns. According to the Nature Conservancy, 11 million tons of plastic waste enter the ocean every year.

This isn't the first time Chipotle has been accused of using unnecessary plastic. Just last year, the chain came under fire for sending 1,000 plastic forks to an influencer who was unhappy with the utensil he received with his order. The stunt caused many people to question Chipotle's commitment to sustainability.

In the wake of more unnecessary plastic use with the Redditor's orange, several commenters planned to boycott the popular chain.

"Avoid Chipotle," one user wrote.

"The only solution is stop eating there," another added.

It's worth noting that not all chains face the same issue. Spurred by a Seattle law requiring restaurants to make their disposable items recyclable or compostable, Taco Time Northwest went all in. By making all its disposables compostable, the restaurant has kept nearly 2,000 tons of material out of landfills.

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