Oliver and I have been making good progress at the Charlottetown Farmers’ Market reducing our weekly waste footprint.
Today we got things down to two pieces of paper towel (compostable) and the water needed to wash out Oliver’s glass and my mug.
We realized that we don’t need straws to drink smoothie and iced tea, so we’ve dispensed with them.
We carry a cloth shopping bag, but still end up with a few plastic bags for carrying things like lettuce; we’ll work on that.
Market Manager Bernie reports that the waste sorting changes continue to work well, to the point where the waste is now going into three streams at Island Waste Management—recycling, compost and waste—whereas before it was all going into waste. The key is to keep the sort rate in the better-than-90% range.
The next step for the market is to get vendors together to bulk-purchase compostable plates, cups and utensils.
Comments
Fantastic! This is a great project for Oliver to document and to share with the Enviro Club and other students at his school.
It appears more vendors at the market are using paper bags and compostable food trays rather than polystyrene. The removal of those big bins from near the coffee corner is quite noticeable too; there's more space for marketers to navigate or to socialize while waiting for their beverages!
Reusable produce bags: http://www.ecobags.com/Our_Products/Produce_Bags
There's a lot of misleading labeling out there. For example, the Eco Product brand labeled 'renewable plant starch' disposable cutlery that can found at big box stores. While purporting to be environmentally friendly, they are not compostable.
These are an option: http: http://www.ecowareproducts.com/biodegradable-wooden-cutlery.html