3 fast food outlets in Cobh joined Gills restaurant on top of the hill and replaced their plastic and Styrofoam packaging last weekend for eco friendly alternatives.
Amigos, Memos & Sorrento’s all replaced their take away packaging with compostable alternatives as part of the greener Cobh initiative run by Cobh Tidy Towns.
The average restaurant produces around 100,000 pounds of waste a year.
Gills restaurant in Cobh has been operating an Eco friendly policy since January 2014.
Restaurant owner Keith Sparrow told the Frontpagenews.ie “We collect all potato and salad waste, plus paper, shredded cardboard for the composter, we also have a returns scheme on our compostable packaging for those that do not have a food bin yet at home.”
Keith estimates his environmental policy saves his business about 55% on his waste bill.
All compost made goes to Cobh’s local community allotments, they are currently using this to grow produce for Gills, (Onions, lettuce, tomatoes etc.) about 2 kilometres away from the Chipper.
Although commercially and domestically there are food and recycle bins it’s still a saving on the environment in moving the waste around and for the business in paying for the waste to be removed.
When Gills first opened about 60% of their waste went to landfill, but with using a food bin, composting on site, and careful recycling they have reduced that to about 5%.
Keith added “We feel that this has been so successful that we are planning to have a second unit on site in the new year, as we produce more food waste than we can currently compost on site.
Regarding the compostable packaging I use at Gills, in the 14months that we have been using this we have potentially diverted 667.65kgs of waste from landfill, saved 1283.45kgs of carbon, and saved 416.21kgs of virgin material. 5.5kgs of carbon is produced when making 1 kg of polystryene. The compostable packaging is made from PLA derived from cornstarch and bagasse which is the by product of growing sugarcane, and is 100% natural and renewable.”