I forget that not everyone thinks like me. I hang out with so many “greenies” that I am sometimes surprised when someone that I am talking to just doesn’t ‘get it.’ From my experience at the film festival last year, I knew that we would be generating a pretty hefty amount of garbage. Feeding thousands of plates of snacks and sandwiches, I was determined to find a way to reduce our environmental footprint. With plenty of negotiations and a few dozen phone calls, I was finally approved to start composting on Tuesday morning. Unfortunately, the hospitality headquarters opened on Friday morning. I put our order together, and had it delivered Thursday afternoon. When it arrived, however, I was disappointed to see a substitution. My enviro-friendly hot cup with the corn resin sealant on the inside was substituted for a hot cup that had a Styrofoam core. Not happy. I then spent the afternoon scouring the city for a hot cup that I could use in the compost. There were surprisingly few options. When I did find an option, I couldn’t get it. Minimum orders, no delivery, no pick ups, were all assorted hold ups. Enter Nature’s Friendly Products…
I had started with Nature’s Friendly Products, as I knew they had a full line of compostable products. They have stuff made from stuff like corn and sugar cane. They will compost in your own garden over a season. While their office is here, they need several days lead time to get the orders in from their warehouse in Indiana (or Iowa-one of the I states…). Jeri Leigh talked me through all the catalog and sent me more information than I needed. I put them on my short list to order from. When the deadline passed and I still did not know if I would be composting, I started looking at other sources. When my order came in wrong and I was freaking out, I finally called Nature’s Friendly Products again and nearly cried on them. A sweet young lady named Tammy calmed me sown with her sweet southern drawl and promised to call em back. Within ten short minutes, I got a call back. The customer forms were in the email and a single case of cups had been rounded up and would be waiting for me by 10 am the following morning. I am sure that she called every rep they had and probably pulled their cups from the employee break room to take care of me.
The following morning after our staff meeting, I jumped in the car and dashed off to Beachwood to pick up my cups. Within a few minutes of arriving, they were loaded and I was back on the road. As I sped down the road, driving farther than I have driven in months, I wondered about the emissions and gas usage by this crazy pick up. As if on cue, the first of several plastic bags floated across the road and hit my windshield with a light smack. The irony was not lost on me that while I was desperately trying to divert our food service waste from the landfill, the trash from someone else was attacking me. While I cannot manage to keep others from littering or reducing the trash that they create, I can make sure that the things under my control were as green as possible. Without the help of Nature’s Friendly Products, I would have had to use a standard hot cup and that might derail all of my plans for composting our waste. And compost we are! In a single day, we managed to create a single bag of garbage. With the hundreds of plates of food that were served, that was quite an accomplishment.
If you are having an event, I highly recommend checking in with Jeri Leigh Siss and her cohorts at Nature’s Friendly Products. With the help fo them and Rosby Companies, your next event could be zero waste.
Tags: composting, Green, trash, waste
