I was looking through the EcoWatch Journal the other day-a great publication, by the way, and highly recommended. I was reading a great article about Crocker park and how it does not recycle. In case you do not know, Crocker Park was a combination live, work, shop community built in Westlake, Ohio. The idea was to take the concept of a “lifestyle center” which is the name for an outdoor mall, usually constructed to look like a city, and add to it. They added office space and residential units. This essentially made Crocker Park a miniature town. I love the development. It is constructed like many developments in the Seattle Metro area. Being more than just shopping, the residents and office dwellers have restaurants, art events, town square activities and there are places to sit and just watch the world go by. That is why I was so disappointed to hear that this one of a kind development did not offer recycling to its residents or its commercial tenants. It is bad enough for retail and offices, but when you throw busy, popular restaurants like the Cheesecake Factory into the mix, and you have a lot of materials that are going into the landfill.
There are heroes to celebrate. Many of the employees of places like Trader Joe’s actually collect their own recycling and take it home or to drop off stations on their own time. This is the kind of dedication that we need to make real change in the region. For the management team at Crocker Park, though, it is more of business as usual. It truly is a shame, too, because a recycling program could actually save them money. It cost less in garbage fees to have someone take all of the glass, plastic, and paper out of the mix. Charities actually make money on paper waste, and some churches have included can and bottle collection in their fundraising programs. Why then, would a company whose job it is to make money bypass the obvious and pay more to have their trash hauled away. It is plainly laziness and shortsightedness at its best. If you think of all the recyclable waste generated by restaurants and bars in a major metropolitan area, the need for commercial recycling is more important than a residential one. Let’s face it, vodka doesn’t come in a biodegradable bag and McDonald’s uses tons of paper goods.
On the other end of the spectrum, comes The Greenhouse Tavern. Now if you are the type that like to read this blog, then you already know about The Greenhouse Tavern. You know about the design features, like rescued reused barn boards and the poured concrete bar with glass from their own bottles. You know about their efforts to celebrate local ingredients and use fresh local foods. You must know about how Chef Jonathan Sawyer is creating delicious dishes and promoting fine cooking in the region. You probably know about the plans to add a greenhouse to the roof to be the only restaurant in the region who grows their own herbs and maybe the first at all inside a major city. What should know that they are the first Certified Green Restaurant in Ohio. But what you may not know are some of the things that they do to get that designation. The highlight for me is the attention paid to waste. In order to recycle in that little slice of restaurant heaven (E 4th), they had to convince someone to give up their valuable parking spot to accommodate a dumpster. Then to keep from adding to the waste stream outside their doors, they looked at to go containers and doggy bags. From an email that I received:
At The Greenhouse Tavern we take our green restaurant certification very seriously. We use a sugar cane photodegradable to go box. It is compostable and can be tossed in your garden. We do not offer to go silverware or napkins. We recycle and reuse all of our glass.
Now, The Greenhouse Tavern sits in Cleveland, in a downtown location, in a city that doesn’t offer full curbside recycling. Still, these guys show such a commitment, that it puts the restaurants of Crocker Park to shame. If any one of the major tenants at Crocker demanded recycling within the project, the management would cave and offer it. Still, no one even tries. So how green is the restaurant that you like to go to? Have you asked? I say skip the trip out to the burbs and keep you money flowing to those businesses who are doing the right thing…
Tags: local food, recycling
You might want to double check the integrity of this restaurant’s “green” philosophy… and its “recycling” and “composting” program, it’s a joke actually.
I would love to hear more.