Green dining: Mastering restaurant composting - from waste to resource

In our ongoing exploration of sustainable restaurant practices, we dive deeper into the practical aspects of commercial composting. Many restaurant owners wonder: What exactly can be composted, and how can we seamlessly integrate composting into daily operations?

What Can Be Commercially Composted

Commercial composting opens up a surprising array of waste streams for restaurants:

• Food preparation scraps (vegetable trimmings, fruit peels)
• Used coffee grounds and tea bags
• Shells- Eggshells, seafood, nut shells
• Spoiled or out-of-date food including food outside of food safety handling requirements.
• Meat products including bones
• Paper towels and paper napkins.

Streamlining Waste Management: A Strategic Approach

Every restaurant is different but the easiest way to get started is in the back of the house at food preparation areas, bussing and dishwashing stations. The idea is to provide a receptacle that can collect food and compostable items that can be later be brought out to your outside collection bin that is serviced by Winton MFG.

Preparation area—Depending on the area your employees have, a small bucket or cambro may be the easiest for collection. If you have room, a slim jim lined with a compostable bag can be used for collection. If utilizing a smaller collection container, add the collected compostable waste items to one of your larger bins lined with a compostable bag. 

Bussing and dishwashing stations—These stations will be the largest collection points and will become the heaviest. Utilizing a slim jim with a compostable bag is advised. At these stations, your employees will be scraping leftover customer food before service ware gets to the dishwasher.

If your restaurant loses silverware, magnetic lids can be purchased to prevent its loss and reduce unnecessary silverware replacement costs while keeping it out of the compostable waste bin. 

Food waste gets heavy so bringing slim jims to the outside bin is recommended. The easiest way to transfer bagged compostable waste from the slim jim to the outside service bin is to tip the bin into the container. Removing the bag from the bin to place into the container may lead to rips and messes but can be avoided if you utilize this simple rule. Also, getting heavy bins to the outside container can be aided by attaching a dolly (wheeled platform) to the bin keeping your employees from having to carry the bins. Rolling the bagged bins to the container is much easier.

For front-of-the-house compostable waste collection some restaurants elect to remove customer-facing waste receptacles this allows employees to sort all waste as it is received, proving much simpler and less time-consuming than sorting already filled bins and checking for contamination. Other restaurants elect to only serve on approved compostable packaging and thus everything going into the compostable waste bin is verified to be compostable. 

Once restaurants realize how much can be commercially composted and transition disposables to approved compostable products, the sorting step becomes smooth and simple, especially in the restaurant industry.

Waste Reduction: A Tangible Impact

The results can be dramatic. One local restaurant reported that participating in commercial composting with Winton Mfg has allowed their business to reduce daily landfill contributions by well over 70% since beginning in 2022. They immediately reduced their landfill amount by 50% and steadily increased that waste reduction over time.