We hear in the news almost everyday something about the environment, sustainability, waste, recycling or carbon footprint. The food and beverage industry and the environment over the years have been both friends and enemies – on the good side we created the “eat local” movement which then started the “100 mile” diet. On the bad side we are being seen as the enemy for how much single use and non- recyclable products that are being used at restaurants. The question we must now ask is how can we be more responsible industry leaders and help create a movement of better environmental stewardship.
Firstly, lets look at some of the bigger more environmentally supportive changes that have occurred in recent years. It was just a few years ago when we had the “war on the plastic bag”. This non-recyclable single use item was a menace to the environment and to curb the habits of consumers using these the government levied a $0.05 fee on all plastic bags. There was outrange in the beginning and some people said that the bags were not single use as they could be used for other things after their initial purpose, but that argument died down quickly. That mere five cent charge was enough to change the habits of the majority of consumers. Fast forward to today, although the fee has been removed at most places the habits of the consumer have been changed forever. Reusable cloth bags are the norm, to the point that when you see someone on the street walking with plastic grocery bags you think “don’t they know that they can’t be recycled”. Not only has the move to reusable bags impacted our environment positively it has provided a valuable marketing tool for many companies and with this created a thriving industry.
Next came the public outcry in regards to plastic straws, this outrage on single use plastics was created by media coverage showing pictures of beaches and ocean floors covered in plastic straws and in 2015 a video of a sea turtle with a 12cm straw stuck up its nose went viral. The reality of what damage these items were doing could not be ignored. The British government quickly banned their use in the United Kingdom and although not as quick to react our Federal government has announced plans to ban plastic straws along with other single use plastics as soon as 2021. With an estimated 57 million straws being thrown out a day in Canada, many restaurant chains such as The Keg, Swiss Chalet and A&W to name a few felt that the ban couldn’t wait and have chosen to stop providing them to their patrons. In my mind the whole notion that we even need straws is ridiculous, why do we need to sip through a straw why can’t we just drink from the cup, isn’t it bad enough we are using a single use disposable cup do we really need to add more waste to the environment. We as an industry are very wasteful, we have a lot of single use products that we use to provide our services. Until we come up with a way to eliminate these products, we need to focus on making the best environmentally sound choices for the items we use.
One Cup at a Time
Which leads to our next topic of discussion, the disposable hot drink cup. Did you know that most coffee cups although they are 95% paper are not recyclable and because of this even the ones that are don’t get recycled? Canadians use 1.5 billion coffee cups a year which creates a staggering 45,000 tonnes of garbage. The only scarier thing is the Canadian numbers pale to the Americans stats, at an estimated 60 billion coffee cups being used in the US each year. The first problem with these cups is that there is a large misunderstanding that these paper cups are recyclable, where in fact that is not the case. Due to the plastic lining inside most cups, they cannot be recycled the same way as regular paper because you need to separate the plastic first. This is where it becomes complicated and costly. In order for this to happen the manufactures and the recyclers will need to work together to find a solution that is viable. Until we have a proper recycling solution for single use hot beverage cups, we should focus on what options we have available, what is best for the environment and for your business?
Let’s start by taking Styrofoam off the table as an option for a hot drink cup, although it probably has the least environmental impact during the manufacturing process and its cheap that’s pretty much where the good stops with Styrofoam. For paper cups you can really put them into 5 categories; Biodegradable, Compostable, Recyclable, Degradable and Post-consumer. Do you know what type of coffee cup you use? My guess is that most people don’t and that they decide on what cup they are going to use based on price? From a price point you will find that they are all pretty close, but from an environmental perspective are they close? The answer is – not at all, the manufacturers tend to use fancy terms to make the product sound eco-friendly but at the end of the day they are just fancy “feel good” words. Biodegradable is by far the best choice when considering the environment and these cups also tend to have the highest percentage of recycled paper, so they are a win/win. Being biodegradable means that the cup will breakdown naturally and be absorbed back into the ecosystem making them “eco-friendly”. The down side is they are not just the most expensive option; they are also the hardest to find and you may have to get them from a specialty supplier. Now Compostable is also a very good option and they are easier to find than Biodegradable. These cups are considered “green” because they will decompose at the same rate as paper does. Recyclable is exactly what it says and it can be put with other paper products to be recycled. Degradable although it sounds good will need help to break down with the use of chemicals, and Post-consumer is simply saying that some (I believe it is 30% or more) of the cup was made using recycled paper.
Paper cups have come a long way in the past few years on a several fronts, but this has been more on the “experience” side. The ability to keep the coffee hotter longer and the size of the rolled rim offering a nicer drinking experience, but we still have a long way to go on the eco-friendly side. Needless to say, the best solution in reducing the amount of single use cups being used would be to encourage patrons to bring a re-useable coffee mug. However, for this to work we would need a cultural shift to occur, similar to what we saw with the cloth grocery bags. Although some coffee shops do offer a discount if you bring your reusable coffee thermos, this hasn’t been enough to change the habits of most consumers. Maybe we need to duplicate what was done with the plastic bags and rather than offering a discount apply an extra charge. It may amount to the same thing, but as consumers we react differently to an extra charge versus a discount?
Eliminating single use items from the operation is complicated for the average restaurant but when you look at it from a private club perspective you would think and hope it would be easier with the support of the membership. The PGA tour has strict environmental guidelines when it comes to the host club of a tournament, this includes the type of disposable products being used, recycling protocol as well as wet waste management. As club operators we should follow their lead and take a hard look at what we can do on a daily basis to support these initiatives?
