The Sustainable Shift Drink

Most anyone that reads this blog or has visited www.sustainablefoodservice.com probably already recycles, or at least wishes they had the ability to recycle in their area. Recycling was one of the first “green” ideas to be readily accepted by the general population, and has become second nature to a good part of the population. However, most restaurants are recycling just the basic cardboard, metal, glass and maybe a little plastic picked up by their local hauler, while there are numerous other materials those restaurants can recycle. Additionally, many foodservice operations do not do a very good job of recycling. They throw away recyclables and put non-recyclables in the recycling containers. Restaurants wanted to increase the value of the material and amount of material they are recycling need to implement a comprehensive recycling program.

CRPs start with a waste audit to learn what recycling issues your business may have. With data from a waste audit the CRP can look at what the restaurant is currently recycling, and widen the recycling program to include more materials. A CRP also looks at how the restaurant is recycling. Are recyclables ending up in the garbage, and where in the facility is that happening? What will prevent this from happening, etc.? Implementing a CRP into training, job descriptions and overall mission sends the message of commitment to waste reduction throughout the company, and in the end cuts waste hauling cost.

Why Cleaner Recyclables?

Tainted recyclables pose a problem for the MRFs (Material Recovery Facility). These are the places where your recyclables are separated, bailed and sold on the recyclables market. The problem arises when non-recyclable materials (contaminants – food, dirty recyclables, non-recyclable items, etc.) wind up in the wanted (and valuable) recyclables. The MRFs do a good job of separating out the unwanted materials, but some of it does get into the final recyclables bail. This decreases the value of those recyclables because companies making products from recycled material want clean, useful material to work with. This was recently described to me in terms of cooking. If you are baking cookies, the recipe calls for flour, sugar, eggs, etc., but you would not want to use flour that had garlic powder spilled in it. The same goes for companies making recycled content products. If they are making recycled content #1 bottles they want to use #1 labeled plastics only. So following the recycling guidelines of your local recycler is essential in the grand picture of recycling.

This can sometimes be easier said than done as restaurant have high turnover, many non-English speaking workers, minimum wage workers that are often not very motivated to go the extra step and many people are not used to recycling. Therefore, training, signage in multiple languages and placement of containers for recycling programs needs to be thorough, intuitive and easy. Post pictures of what is and what is not recyclable near garbage and recycling areas. Train staff to know what goes where and make it easy for them to recycle. Often, the simplest solution to improving a recycling program is just making the bins more accessible. Recycling should be a part of every employee’s job descriptions so they are not expected to do it voluntarily, but rather as part of their daily work.

What Else is Recyclable?

As for recyclability of things, there are a lot materials used in restaurants that could find a home other than in the garbage. Electronics, fluorescent lights (these are usually illegal to throw away), wine corks, broken equipment and plastic wrap are just a few items that can be recycled. Plastic wrap is one of the easiest materials to collect and recycle. It is usually already clean since it comes from packages of disposables, linens and other dry goods (don’t recycle plastic wrap that has been used for food), it compacts easily and is light weight. It is also easy to recycle even in areas without major recycling systems since many grocery stores have started recycling plastic bags. Recycling sections of local dumps will often take clean plastic wrap, or there may be a company nearby that is collecting and bailing its own wrap to sell on the market.

There are a couple resources for finding recyclers in your area. First local waste management departments are usually the best option to find info on what and where you can recycle locally. It is a great place to start, as they may know a school that will take your wine corks or bottle caps for art projects, or what local hardware stores recycle CFL bulbs.

Earth911.com is another great resource for finding local recyclers. Their website lists recyclers of various materials based on zip codes. Type in what you are trying to recycle and your zip code, and Earth911 will give you a list of recyclers of that item in your area.

In general, a comprehensive recycling program should be a part of any restaurant striving for a more sustainable business. It is a low or no-cost solution that can reap great rewards. Most of the work involved has to do with human behavior, which can be challenging, but changed with a sustained commitment to reducing waste.

Tags: Recycling, waste audits, Waste Reduction
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In one of my last posts on water conservation I mentioned significant savings several times, but never got a chance to calculate some of those potential savings. So, here are a few of the numbers…in somewhat unscientific fashion…

First, there is not a lot of data on water use in restaurants, and the data that is available is not very detailed and varies quite a bit. What is available shows use anywhere from 900 gallons per day to well over 7000 gallons per day so its hard to say what an average would be. In addition, most of the numbers that are available tend to just give rounded numbers for an entire restaurant’s use rather than broken down to individual uses like dishwashing, hand sinks, etc. So, I’ll try to make an estimation based on general use rather than being based on total use.

Lets take the aerator idea as an example. Say a restaurant has a number of faucets all with 2.2 gallon per minute aerators installed. Over the course of the day, all the sink uses (minus the dish sink and dishwasher) add up to two hours. So every time someone washed their hands, rinsed some vegetables, filled a glass of water, or a mop bucket the total running time of the faucets added up to two hours. This is a fairly conservative estimate based on the water use data, and also assumes the restaurant did not thaw frozen product under running water, which can add over two hours of use alone.

Total water usage and cost at this establishment would then be:

120 (minutes) * 2.2 gpm = 264 gallons / 1000 = .264 kgal * $7^[1] = $1.85 per day

$1.85 * 360 days a year = $666.00 per year for faucet use.

.264 kg * 360 = 95.04 kgal per year

Now lets assume they installed 1.0 gpm aerators in all the faucets. As I mentioned in the previous post, this would reduce their water consumption by 55%. However, because a certain percentage of the water use is for drinking or recipes, or other uses where an absolute amount of water is required regardless of the aerator we cannot assume a straight 55% reduction in water consumption. Based on data from restaurant water consumption reports, lets assume 35%[2] of use is non-absolute amounts. Meaning handwashing, rinsing produce and any other water use that does not need a set amount like a glass of water would. I’ll use time as the divisible factor, and 2.2 gpm for the 57% of use that is for absolute needs rather than calculate it at 1.0 gpm, and multiply it by 2.2 to get what the actual use would be.

The water use and cost with 1.0 gpm aerators would then be:

78 (minutes) * 2.2 gpm = 171.6 gallons / 1000 = .172 kgal * $7 = $1.20 per day

42 (35% of total) * 1.0 gpm = 42 gallons / 1000 = .042 kgal * $7 = $.29 per day

(1.20 + .29) * 360 days = $536.40 / year

(.172 kgal + .042 kgal) * 360 = 77.04 kgal / year

$666.00 (cost with 2.2 gpm aerators) – $536.40 (cost with 1.0 aerators) = $129.60 savings per year

So, $130 a year may not seem like a “significant” savings, but considering the amount invested (roughly $2 per aerator) the payback is huge. That is about a one-month payback period if seven aerators were replaced with no maintenance or updating needed ever. Unlike other efficiency measures, faucet aerators are an install and forget it fix. There is no other measure that is as cost effective. Basically, regardless of how one calculates the savings, or the restaurant’s daily water use low-flow aerators are a simple, low cost solution that should be used in every establishment.

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[1] http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS163067+24-Sep-2008+MW20080924

[2] American Water Works Association Research Foundation, Commercial and Institutional End Uses of Water, DeOreo, William et. al., 2000

Tags: aerators, water efficiency
Posted in Waste Reduction, Water | 1 Comment »

Our post today is from a guest writer, Greg McGuire, from The Back Burner.

The dipper well is a small countertop sink that uses a constant flow of water to clean utensils like ice cream scoops and barista thermometers.  The sink fills up to a certain level and then drains away, so a dipper well acts like a constantly filling pool.  The in and out flow of water makes it convenient to clean utensils because any residue drains out automatically as the pool continues to fill.

The problem is that many coffee shops and ice cream parlors leave their dipper wells on regardless of how much business they’re doing.  That means water is constantly flowing, and it adds up very quickly.  As restaurants explore sustainable and environmentally friendly practices, partly out of personal conviction, partly out of the need to cut costs, and mainly because customers are demanding it, things like the dipper well have become more and more obsolete.

The sad fact is that we can hardly afford the convenient luxury of a dipper well any more.  A UNLV professor in Las Vegas conducted a study of water use as a direct result of dipper wells, and the results were pretty shocking, especially for a city located in the middle of a desert that is susceptible to drought: 2,453 dipper wells in 1,134 food service locations used 106.4 million gallons of water in a single year.  The professor says the numbers are pretty conservative and the real totals are probably much higher.

Starbucks has taken a lot of flack for their use of dipper wells as well, particularly in England, where anews article was recently published with similarly shocking numbers: 5.85 million gallons of water are used in the 10,000 global Starbucks locations every day.  Starbucks has pledged to remove dipper wells from their U.S. locations by the end of this year, and international shops will follow suit soon after.

Dipper wells became so ubiquitous because of food safety concerns.  A constant flow of water helps prevent bacterial buildup, and they are so easy to clean and use that even the greenest employee can be put to work while minimizing contamination problems.  Plenty of other methods address the food safety issue and are almost as easy to implement, however.

Besides the ethical issue of wasting a precious resource like potable water, dipper wells are also a drag on any business’ bottom line.  It’s a deceivingly large monthly expense that’s easy to miss since your water bill also includes dishwashing, food prep, beverages, ice, etc.  Depending on how many dipper wells you use, turning them off could add up to several hundred dollars a year once you account for water and wastewater charges.

What are some alternatives to dipper wells? Starbucks has started using a one scoop, one pitcher policy in some stores, meaning the scoop and pitcher are used once before being washed.  A commercial undercounter dishwasher could easily replace a dipper well and significantly reduce water usage since many models use less than a gallon per rack.

Many other options exist; just make sure you consult with your local Board of Health to ensure you are minimizing contamination risks before shutting down your dipper well for good.  Replacing the dipper wells in your establishment will save you money, save you face, and earn you some green restaurant credibility with your customers.  And you just might be helping the environment along the way, a very marketable side effect to a smart business decision.

Greg McGuire blogs about the foodservice industry at The Back Burner, which is written by the employees of Tundra Specialties, a company specializing in restaurant equipment and food service supplies.

Tags: dipper well, water efficiency
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Usually when anyone starts talking about going green or general sustainability one of the first words out of their mouth is “energy.” Energy is a big thing, particularly right now. There is a huge push for green energy, we were recently smacked in the face with $4 gas prices that are sure to return, and things like solar panels are just cool. However, while energy efficiency might be sexy and a great marketing tool, water is a much more important long-term issue. We can have clean energy as long as the sun shines and the wind blows, but clean water is a finite resource and should be high priority for restaurants – if not for the environmental implications, the costs associated with water use. Fortunately, water conservation is one of the easiest green efforts.

I’ve been in a lot of different restaurants lately, and one of my main recommendations to all of them has been water conservation. Nearly every restaurant I’ve been in had a leak in at least one faucet somewhere in the facility. Some were fairly minor inconsistent drips while others were near constant flows that had to be wasting hundreds of gallons of water a day, which chalks up a significant cost very quickly. In addition to ignored leaks, not one foodservice operation had low-flow aerators on their faucets. Most had aerators that allow 2.0 to 2.2 gallons per minutes while a low-flow aerator will use anywhere from .5 to 1.5 gpm, which is considered a standard “low-flow” aerator. By replacing a single 2.2 gpm aerator with a 1.5 gpm, restaurants could save nearly 32% out of that faucet alone, 55% with a 1.0 gpm aerator and over 77% with a .5 gpm aerator.

To make matters worse, every restaurant I’ve audited lately also had at least one faucet without an aerator all together. Besides the fact that non-aerated faucets consume about 5 gpm, a faucet without any sort of screen poses a food contamination issue. Take an aerator or screen off a faucet sometime and see what they have caught: bits of plastic, rubber from gaskets, metal from the pipes, weird goo from God knows where, etc. All these things are possibility ending up in food because the majority of faucets without aerators tend to be in vegetable sinks. Why in vegetable sinks? Because kitchen workers want and need to fill buckets and sinks quickly. So rather than wait around a few minutes for a 1.5 gpm or even a 2.2 gpm faucet to fill their five gallon bucket, they take the aerator off and fill that bucket in less than a minute. It’s hard to blame them for doing this. Commercial kitchens are obviously fast paced environments, and every second counts. No one wants to wait around for a bucket of water to fill. The problem arises when that faucet is used for something other than filling a bucket, like thawing froze meat under a water stream. This is a bad practice to begin with, but even worse when the volume of water is four or five times what it could be.

How does one balance the kitchen’s needs with conservation? First, almost every faucet in the house should have a low-flow aerator installed on them, particularly hand sinks. Bathrooms and kitchen hand sinks are great places to spend a couple extra dollars and purchase aerators that use under 1.5 gpm. For sinks that have a single use like water filling stations I recommend only a screen on the faucet if and only if it is only being used for filling water carafes and not hand washing, rinsing rags, etc.

To prevent the kitchen staff from removing aerators in vegetable sinks I recommend providing them with a designated faucet for filling stock pots, buckets and the like. You may need to add an additional faucet to the vegetable sink, but the long term savings are well worth the effort. Make sure to use signage that reminds them which faucet is used for what.

Water conservation may be not a sexy marketing campaign option, but it is a simple, very cost effective sustainability measure every foodservice operation can implement. A few dollars in investment will have huge returns at the end of the year.

Tags: aerators, restaurants, water efficiency
Posted in Waste Reduction, Water | 2 Comments »

One of the big things in campus cafeterias the last couple years has been trayless dining. Several hundred college foodservice operations removed trays from their dining facilities, and left the students to eat what they could carry. The initial programs were a huge success, and continue to be widely popular. Rightly so. Campus foodservice operations are seeing anywhere from a 20-50% reduction in food and beverage waste, which makes a big contribution to the bottom line of the facility and the environment. Less food is wasted therefore less food needs to be prepped, which means less labor, lower energy bills, less dishes, and less hot water not to mention smaller waste hauling bills. It’s basically a win, win, win for the operations.

Foodservice management companies like Aramark and Sodexho are rolling out trayless programs in the majority of their campuses, and it is predicted that the majority of schools nationwide will be trayless in the next several year. In a survey conducted by Aramark in 2008, 79% of the 92,000 students surveyed said they support trayless dining programs. One university chef I spoke with said the majority of people that complained when they took away the trays were the university staff. Maybe the colleges could hire some local waiters to teach the students and staff how to carry multiple plates without spilling anything…

So what is the next big thing for non-commercial foodservice? While many organizations are opting for biodegradable products, I personally think reusable take-out containers are going to be the next step for non-commercial operations interested in reducing their environmental footprint.

Up until a few years ago there was not a commercial, reusable take-out container on the market. That is until Eckerd College student, Audrey Copeland came up with the idea for one. While a sophomore at Eckerd, Audrey audited the foodservice program’s use of Styrofoam take-out containers and decided there should be a more sustainable option. Over the next several years she wrote a grant to fund a pilot reusable container program, contracted a company to produce the container, helped design the products and created a program for her college to implement the containers into their foodservice operations. She is now the Sustainable Products Manager for G.E.T., the company that manufactures the “Eco-Takeouts,” and has introduced the containers to Bon-Appetit, Sodexho, Google, Nestle, various healthcare facilities, and Aramark, which made a commitment to introduce the container to 100 of its university accounts. My props to Audrey for single-handedly swaying a huge industry.

The containers are basically a poly-propylene clam shell container (though there are other styles available) that the students have the option of using for a $5 deposit. They then simply exchange the container for a clean one at no additional cost the next time they visit one of the foodservice options.

Again, these programs are showing a huge financial benefit for the foodservice operations, and lets the students dine anywhere they want without the “eco-guilt” of using another take-out container. Several facilities are achieving a 40% reduction in their use of take-out boxes, while other schools that made the containers mandatory for students living in the dorms are seeing nearly a 100% reduction in container use. 100% savings sounds good to me…

Tags: reusable take-out, trayless, trends
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