Dear Morris and Jeremy Reaves, Owner and CEO's of Cookout,

Please STOP using (polystyrene foam) aka styrofoam for your cookout trays and drinks! Styrofoam is a non-recyclable hazardous material dangerous to our earth and human health. We believe your organization's management should do more research and make a stronger commitment to keeping our environment a safer place by making a fundamental switch in your packaging to biodegradable, compostable alternative containers.

We understand the wonderful benefits of styrofoam packaging, that it insulates food, drinks and your signature shakes, it is lightweight, easy to ship! However please consider the vast negative environmental impacts and do what other food franchises are doing to mitigate their impact.

YOU, COOKOUT, are a very popular cultural food icon of the southeast U.S. with over 170 locations. You have SIGNIFICANT influence over consumer habits! Please consider some of the statistics below about styrofoam, as well as our list of signatures and please work with our community to create a more organic, sustainable future, one that we can all support in good health!

-Styrofoam is a product of petroleum.

-When heated or microwaved, chemical leaching can easily occur from packaging to food.

-Styrene lasts forever! It does not break down from exposure to light or photolysis and will stay in the earth for hundreds of years.

-Polystyrene floats in water and is high susceptible to marine biology contamination.

-In 1986, the EPA identified Polystyrene manufacturing as the 5th largest creator of hazardous waste. http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp53-c6.pdf

-Manufacturing of polystyrene is known to emit over 57 toxic chemicals into the atmosphere. http://greenliving.lovetoknow.com/How_Styrofoam_is...

- Styrene (a building block component of styrofoam) is considered a carcinogen. http://www3.epa.gov/airtoxics/hlthef/styrene.html

-Some polystyrene products are manufactured with HCFC-22 which is heavily destructive to the earth's ozone layer. http://www.earthresource.org/campaigns/capp/capp-s...

-Many cities and governments world wide, in the U.S. and in the southeast U.S. have already outlawed polystyrene. The list is huge. http://www.surfrider.org/pages/polystyrene-ordinan...

This company http://www.ecovativedesign.com makes strong, lightweight, insulating alternatives to your current polystyrene material. Please contact them and make a strong business decision!