A Restaurant With No Leftovers

Ruthanne

Ruthanne

Caregiver
Location
Midwest
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/01/business/zero-waste-restaurants.html

The first batch of compost will be used to fertilize its mini-gardens on top of hutches outside the wine bar, and possibly the Brooklyn Grange’s rooftop farm at the Navy Yard. A Rhodora spokeswoman also said that compared with Mr. Rich’s previous Brooklyn restaurant venture Mettā, the business had saved an average of $300 a month in part by eliminating its trash pickup. (Ms. Chambers estimated that Mettā, which promoted itself as being a carbon-neutral and low-waste restaurant, produced 7,000 pounds of trash per month.)

“We’re at one pivot point,” Mr. Rich said. “The hope is that maybe we can influence and inspire some people above and below to learn what zero waste is, because it’s so beautifully simple not having a trash and not sending it to the landfill.”

Seems like it may be a good idea to me and I hope like they hope that other restaurants will follow.
 

I tried composting once. Saved all my peelings, and leftover vegetable detritus, egg shells, etc. Bought a composting barrel, compost starter, the whole works. Added in grass clippings and such. All it did was draw flies, and lots of 'em. I finally gave up. But if it works for this restaurant, I'm all for it.
 
Wife and I are big proponents of composting. A number of areas, Washington State being the major example, allow for streetside composting. I have a b-in-law that has a bin for recycling food waste, separate from glass/plastic/paper, that is collected. This could be done everywhere in the country. The waste is composted on a large scale basis and farmers, along with 'regular people', have access to the compost for their gardening.
For ourselves, we're on a few acres so having a compost pile is easy for us to do on our own.
 

and we receive around a pound of paper every week: flyers, enveloped sales pitches.
save all the junk mail you get for one week, it is astounding. The paper can be put in compost, the slick paper cannot...
Were drowning in paper we do not want, do not need and there is no remedy.
 
Were drowning in paper we do not want, do not need and there is no remedy.

Out here in the boonies we have a burn barrel.
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BURN%2BBARRELS.jpg
 
Austin recently introduced a green bin for home organic waste. After a few uses, it was terribly stinky, and looked like barf, inside. I now put organic waste in, in plastic bags that are knotted. If that doesn't work for my city, I'll just toss the organic with the non-recyclable trash.
 
jerry r. garner said:
and we receive around a pound of paper every week: flyers, enveloped sales pitches.
save all the junk mail you get for one week, it is astounding. The paper can be put in compost, the slick paper cannot...
Were drowning in paper we do not want, do not need and there is no remedy.
Click to expand...
I have no use for them, don't look at them, and they go straight to the trash.
 
Don M. said:
Several studies have shown that nearly 40% of the food in America is wasted.
Click to expand...
Yeah. I just saw on a PBS special the other week that 30% of all food grown, in the world, is tossed in some manner. Of course, at the same time, we have people with little to no food. The problem is always with logistics. We only have small, local operations distributing food that might be tossed. If we had the political will, food could be distributed all over the U.S., for a start. For instance, in our town food bank, we have volunteers going around to stores and restaurants gathering items that are close to expiration or day-old bread from Panera.
 
jerry r. garner said:
...and we receive around a pound of paper every week: flyers, enveloped sales pitches.
save all the junk mail you get for one week, it is astounding. The paper can be put in compost, the slick paper cannot...
Were drowning in paper we do not want, do not need and there is no remedy.
Click to expand...
Another issue that is addressed only in select areas. We have the same thing --- pounds of junk mail a week. But we're able to recycle everything. I work with a local environmental group and take boxes of books to recycling, for instance. We used to have to get volunteers to tear off the hard covers, which they did by hand. We don't have to do that any longer if the cover is cardboard, which most books are. But, we have an environmental group, locally, that has worked on these areas for decades. I've been involved since 1982. If you're really interested in getting more recycling, you have to form a group and go directly to the waste haulers to see if programs can be set up. It won't happen without participation.
 
Gardenlover said:
I remember the burn barrel my grandma had, I loved being sent out to burn the garbage.
Now-a-days you can't even burn leaves. And oh how I loved the smell. I still burn a few bags for the smell.
Click to expand...

We live in the boondocks, with little or no restrictions. There is a nice ditch along our gravel road, and it fills up with leaves which can easily clog the conduit under our driveway. I go out 2 or 3 times in the Fall/Winter and have a nice bonfire alongside the roadway. The burning leaves are very "aromatic", IMO, and keeping the ditch cleared saves me some real problems when the Spring rains come. I also blow a bunch of leaves into the garden and add the ashes from my outdoor wood furnace, and let them "marinate' through the Winter, then till it all up in the Spring....makes for some real good fertilizer.
 
The only stuff I compost is yard waste for the reasons outlined by other posters.

Leaves, grass clippings, garden castoff and fallen tree branches all draw earthworm activity.

They make a nice compost without the odor and flies. Critters mix it up by burrowing in it too. I just use a shovel to dig out the bottom and have more than enough compost every year.

But if you live in the city and manage to make enough compost from kitchen waste, I applaud that too.
 
The grocery store I frequent has a huge bakery goods section and I almost never seen anyone buying any of it. I always wonder how much of it goes to the dumpster. Typically expired produce goes to pig/hog farms to be eaten but animas can't eat old cakes, pies and cupcakes.
 
fmdog44 said:
The grocery store I frequent has a huge bakery goods section and I almost never seen anyone buying any of it. I always wonder how much of it goes to the dumpster. Typically expired produce goes to pig/hog farms to be eaten but animas can't eat old cakes, pies and cupcakes.
Click to expand...
Sure they can. Why can't they?
 
hogs will eat anything, including you if were to fall and not be able to get up and other hogs-they will eat anything
We could take them to garbage dumps-they would vacuum up anything eatable.
I'm leery of eating anything hog, but I have a weakness for bacon and sausage.

also the feeding lots for cattle are feeding the cattle chemicals, plus there packed, the cattle feeding lots are covered with cow poo:
The cattle walk around in poo before their slaughtered.
I sure they washed down well, aren't you?
 
jerry r. garner said:
hogs will eat anything, including you if were to fall and not be able to get up and other hogs-they will eat anything
We could take them to garbage dumps-they would vacuum up anything eatable.
I'm leery of eating anything hog, but I have a weakness for bacon and sausage.

also the feeding lots for cattle are feeding the cattle chemicals, plus there packed, the cattle feeding lots are covered with cow poo:
The cattle walk around in poo before their slaughtered.
I sure they washed down well, aren't you?
Click to expand...
It is illegal in most states if not all to feed prepared food to animals as opposed to rotting veggies.
 

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