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.
- Collect food waste separately instead of piling it all in the garbage (up and running in Renton and Everett)
- Bring back re-usable utensils and plates – ie eliminate plastic and Styrofoam or use biodegradable materials (compostable flatware now in use throughout Puget Sound)
- 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
- 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.
- Establish a way to recycle cardboard trays and/or encourage their re-use (or get rid of them altogether). (changes to supply in work)
- 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
- 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)
- 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)
- Encourage re-use of coffee cups with discounts for re-use (see 14 or 16 also).
- Encourage employees to bring their own utensils and plates (offer discount? but see 14 or 16)
- Stop printing receipts for every transaction or at least recycle them
- Recycle glass (mixed recycling now in use)
- Introduce more healthy, sustainable choices at satellite restaurants (maybe specialize at certain locations)
- Instead of offering discounts for reusing cups, trays etc, charge extra for using disposables.
- Share more metrics about waste generated, recyclables used, energy consumed, etc so changes can be measured
- Punch cards for using own cup with free drinks with enough punch-outs – could be more of an incentive than discounts on each drink
- Bar code on employee cups could make offering discounts or incentives easier through direct charging.
Questions/feedback, please contact: workerbee@beesfly.org
The views expressed and links provided on this site do not necessarily reflect the views of The Boeing Company.
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