BEES – Boeing Employees for Environmental Stewardship

IDEAS FOR REDUCING ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF CAFETERIAS

Many of these ideas are already in work or being considered - next step is to meet with company site focals to discuss how we can help implement them.

1. Collect food waste separately instead of piling it all in the garbage (up and running in Renton and Everett)

2. Bring back re-usable utensils and plates – ie eliminate plastic and Styrofoam or use biodegradable materials (compostable flatware now in use throughout Puget Sound)

3. Encourage cafeteria to offer low-impact food choices (for health and environment).  Tie this to developing education/information about the impact of our food choices

4. Encourage cafeteria to buy local, fresh, organic foods.  Maybe we can contact a CSA to initiate this relationship.  With volume, the cost may not be too bad.  Contact Employee Service Center about offering pickup service for boxes of local produce.

5. Establish a way to recycle cardboard trays and/or encourage their re-use (or get rid of them altogether). (changes to supply in work)

6. Contact cafeterias at other companies/schools to get ideas/experiences on becoming less wasteful.  A couple of links found with a simple internet search on green cafeterias:

http://www.epa.gov/epp/pubs/case/cafeteria.htm

http://www.usatoday.com/money/workplace/2008-02-07-cafeteria-healthy_N.htm

http://www.theforecaster.net/story.php?storyid=17675

7. Explore the energy use in the cafeteria (and kitchens) to look for ideas for saving energy (Boeing Food Service focals are already working this hard)

8. Offer organic coffee (Tully’s offers mostly organic, shade-grown coffee already and some office coffee stations in the 45-80 already are doing this – see www.groundsforchange.org or contact Chris Eastland for info)

9. Encourage re-use of coffee cups with discounts for re-use (see 14 or 16 also). 

10. Encourage employees to bring their own utensils and plates (offer discount? but see 14 or 16)

11. Stop printing receipts for every transaction or at least recycle them

12. Recycle glass (mixed recycling now in use)

13. Introduce more healthy, sustainable choices at satellite restaurants (maybe specialize at certain locations)

14. Instead of offering discounts for reusing cups, trays etc, charge extra for using disposables.

15. Share more metrics about waste generated, recyclables used, energy consumed, etc so changes can be measured

16. Punch cards for using own cup with free drinks with enough punch-outs – could be more of an incentive than discounts on each drink

17. Bar code on employee cups could make offering discounts or incentives easier through direct charging.

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