Thursday, April 22, 2010

The Things We Do. . .and why. Earth Day Special Edition


So its Earth Day, and this is the day that you are supposed to stop throwing things away and be "environmentally conscious". Like one day out of the year will make a difference...well it does. But let's be realistic here, if you did this stuff EVERY DAY, it would make a BIGGER difference. So I thought today, I would give you an idea of what we do every day to help reduce our "carbon footprint" (you can tell I am not into the buzz words), or more importantly what we do to reduce our addition to the waste and land fill stuff that is slowly poisoning us all. I promise this will not be "preachy".

When we first opened Salumiere Cesario it was one of my main goals that we not create a lot of waste. In a town the size of Walla Walla, it is extra important to make sure that what we put into the land fill is absolutely not a recyclable, as we have limited space and what leaches from the landfill into the ground affects all of us. So we decided to use a wax sheet and butcher paper. The butcher paper is totally recyclable, where plastic wrap is not. We decided on reusable plastic deli containers that can be used in the microwave, so people would be less likely to throw them away. Our quart size containers can even be used for hot foods as well as cold, making them even more useful at home.

We made a conscious decision to limit the amount of "takeaway" food we did as this would help reduce the amount of waste we produce. When we did finally decide on takeaway boxes, we went with a natural 100% recycled content box. The box itself is 100% recyclable too. Even our lunch box is almost totally recyclable. The box, the tissue, the napkin, the condiment cup and even the flat ware. Only the wax sheet that the salame and cheese come wrapped in are not.

You'll notice that all of our beverages come in glass containers. Again a conscious decision on our part to make sure that we were not adding to the problem, and most people feel self conscious throwing away glass. Speaking of glass, we now recycle all of our glass. 100% of our glass is either reused in house or taken to the local recycling center. We started our Bulk Olive Oil program just to help reduce the amount of wine bottles that were being sent to the land fill. A 750ml (standard) wine bottle is sterilized and reused to hold olive oil for your kitchen, you can even bring in you own sterilized standard wine bottle from home and refill it, just remember to bring a T-cork. We even use non phosphate soap for our dishes.

Many people ask us why we don't do more take out food. Well, we think our food is better enjoyed here and we think that whenever possible we should try not to create more waste. So certain items will never be available to go, but know that its only because we are trying to do our part to make the world a better place. Happy Earth Day. Cheers.

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