Our waste, as ugly and smelly as it may be, tells us a lot. In the cafe business, waste seems to be as fundamental as the coffee and the food itself. To make anything, there is some by product that we cannot use. Although waste seems to be an intrinsic part of our lives, what we choose to do or not do with our trash says something about us as well.
About a year ago, Diesel was inviteded to join Go Green Somerville, an organization committed to greening Somerville through local businesses. At the same time, Diesel was looking into starting a composting program to supplement our trash and recycling pickups and we were eager to join a group that could motivate and help us move in the right direction. We were hesitant, though because we thought that the addition of composting would cost more and we were already paying so much to get our trash taken away. In 2007, we were paying over $10,000 just for trash removal!!!
Until a year ago, Diesel had gotten trash picked up 7 days/week. The volume of our waste was a little embarassing and in a single day, we would have more trash than we could store. The city picked up our recycling once a week and nine years ago, there was only one other business in the entire city that had a recycling program.
Today, we have learned through our waste program at Diesel that:
- Composting has actually managed to SAVE us close to $2000/year (This does not include rate increases to adjust for fuel or cost of living)
- We have managed to keep close to 80,000 pounds of trash out of a landfill.
In 2 weeks, Diesel will be removing trash cans from all customer seating areas in hopes of reducing our solid waste even more. Bloc 11 has been trash can free for close to 2 months and the response from customers has been overwhelmingly positive.
If you see us sifting and sorting through trash cans, don't worry, we are just trying to avoid compost contamination. If you happen to see me spacing out into a plastic bucket, I am probably just trying to think of how to reduce all of our waste.
