Twice now in the past eight years I have found myself working for an employer that produces massive amounts of waste which ends up in the landfill and or anywhere else in the immediate environment. The first is a fast food chain based mostly in coffee, and the coffee cups they produce, though made from recycled paper, can be found just about anywhere once used. Sometimes just walking along one block on a city street will allow you to find more than a dozen cups with their plastic lids carelessly discarded on the sidewalk, someone's lawn or on the street. The particular franchise that I worked for did very little recycling.
Paper cups, plastic and glass bottles and packaging went right in with the rest of the garbage and quite often, even though machines were not in use, they were still left turned on to waste energy. If this were an environmentally friendly company it would recycle all of the above, and could, being a fast food outlet also separate certain food waste for composting. Coffee grinds are good for the garden for example and apparently acts as a deterrent to rabbits feasting on growing veggies, and could be donated to anyone with a garden and even to farmers. Last but not least, it seems to me that it is a simple matter to turn off machines that are not in use.
One Second with Naure: May 2013
11 years ago
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