Reducing Waste - 3 Steps Restaurants Are Taking to Reduce Waste

I have helped hundreds of restaurants over the past few years move toward zero waste — a philosophy that encourages the redesign of resource life cycles so that all products are reused or recycled.

Businesses pushing toward zero waste focus on reducing waste as much as possible and then diverting any remaining waste toward recycling and composting environments. To accomplish this, I’ve seen these businesses incorporate 3 major tactics:

1) Eliminating Non Recyclable or Compostable Waste – I’ve seen a variety restaurants and cafes effectively eliminate waste that can not be composted or recycled. For outbound supplies (ones used by customers), many have moved over to compostable food packaging for their cutlery, to go containers, cups, bowls, etc. Inbound supplies can be a bit more difficult to control (e.g., it’s more difficult to force your vendor not to cover your produce with plastic wrap), but still in many cases restaurants have been able to ask vendors to stop using packaging which is difficult to recycled such as Styrofoam.

2) Eliminating their Trash Cans – I’ve seen quite a few sustainably minded business owners eliminate or dramatically reduce the size of their trash can. This seems to be a very powerful tactic so long as you’ve already implemented #1 and reduced most of your packaging to compostables & recyclables. By eliminating your trash can, you force customers to think before they discard their waste, and when combined with proper recycling & composting signage, this can be very effective for getting customers to self-sort their waste.

3) Employee Education – I’ve found that businesses that are the best at moving toward zero waste actively educate and train their employees on recycling, composting, use of re-usables, etc. Training is key for answering customer questions (e.g., which bin does this fork go in?) and for the sorting of waste left at tables or in the kitchen. Further, having employees that are excited about a businesses move toward zero waste will go a long way in embedding that sentiment into the businesses culture and the minds of it’s customers.

Reducing Waste - 3 Steps Restaurants Are Taking to Reduce Waste