Heeding Green Advice: Restaurants Need Smart Ways to Implement Recycling

The ability for QSRs to implement recycling and composting programs has certainly gotten easier in the last five years; but with the average restaurant producing 150,000 pounds of yearly trash, using 300,000 gallons of water, and more electricity than any commercial industry, fully enjoying the environmental payoffs that come from recycling means doing more than just setting out bins for empty bottles. To achieve recycling success, owners and operators are considering and implementing holistic approaches for getting rid of their waste.

Multi-Pronged Approach

“Restaurants that achieve the highest level of success with a recycling program are the ones that create a fully developed solution,” says Michael Oshman of the Green Restaurant Association (GRA), the Boston-based national non-profit organization that joins restaurants, manufacturers, vendors, the government, and even media, to find solutions for creating more sustainable practices, and reducing the environmental impact of the restaurant industry.

So how should they do it? Oshman says restaurants are wise to perform an environmental assessment of their whole operation to make smart decisions about procurement of food and food-service materials, reduction in waste, and implementation of recycling.  One small way a restaurant can positively impact the environment is by purchasing plates, cups, napkins, and straws that are made from recycled content. 

Oshman admits that purchasing recycled materials is more expensive, but through a full analysis of the interrelated costs and savings, operators just might discover that the savings achieved in waste management can often offset the additional expense.  “The price of sustainable packaging is going to continue to decrease as demand increases,” says Oshman.  “Using materials made from recycled content is not only a way to reuse recycled materials but it also creates demand.”

Waste Not, Want Not

Food comprises 60 to 70 percent of restaurant food-service waste: A proper waste management system focused on reduction and reuse of waste created during food prep — as well as consumer waste such as food scraps and materials — can help restaurants reduce waste by buying appropriate amounts of food, rotating food stock, reducing portion sizes if plates are consistently tossed with food on them, or dispensing condiments in refillable containers. 

“Using materials made from recycled content is not only a way to reuse recycled materials but it also creates demand.” says Oshman.

Food waste can also be diverted from landfills by using a composting service, which in turn can reduce the cost of garbage hauling.  Compost removal often costs less than that of garbage, and the compost helps create healthy, organic soil for farmers and gardeners. 

Intelligent Collection

The infrastructure that supports collection, sorting and processing recyclable and composted waste varies by city, and even within cities.  Materials made of metal, plastic, glass, and cardboard are generally recyclable, but restaurants should verify collection practices specific to their location to find out what is acceptable, and in what format.  Most paper recycling can’t handle food contamination. 

 Shameless Self-Promotion

 A QSR's recycling efforts are meaningless unless customers and employees are moved to participate. Sustainably minded consumers would enjoy hearing about waste reduction and recycling efforts, so create signs providing diners with an easy-to-follow program for sorting their waste and promote the program as part of the restaurant’s overall mission.  As for employees, empower them with information regarding the overall scope of the program so that they pass their knowledge the consumer and follow the program throughout their work assignments.  They might turn into your best stewards.