If you have kids, you know the mounds of trash that accompany a meal from McDonald’s or some other fast-food burger chain. Paper cups, plastic lids and straws, burger wrappings, cardboard fry boxes, paper napkins and a sack or two - or even a cardboard “kid’s meal” box, and plastic wrapping from the cheap plastic toy that came with it.
The average restaurant generates about 275 pounds of trash daily, but a new eco-friendly fast food restaurant called Grille Zone generates just 15 pounds. And it’s not because they don’t have customers. How do they do it? The Christian Science Monitor reports:
“For a restaurant to be truly green, they have to think about the lighting, the napkins, the cleaning products, the waste, the grill – everything,” says Michael Oshman, founder of the Green Restaurant Association (GRA), a national, nonprofit consultancy in Boston that helps eateries become more environmentally friendly. “But what a lot of restaurateurs don’t realize is that taking the necessary steps is not only good for the environment and good for their image, it’s also a way to lower costs.”
Thanks to improved technology and increased adoption of sustainable products, even burger joints can go green. After opening in June, Grille Zone became the GRA’s first certified environmentally friendly fast-food restaurant. Its green features surround the lunch crowd of mostly college students. Co-owner Ben Prentice points to the infrared grill, the energy-efficient lighting, the locally grown vegetables, the wall decoration taken from an old New England schoolhouse, the plates and cutlery made completely from corn and wheat starch – even those confusing compost and recycling barrels are from an old brandy distillery.
The Boston-based burger joint isn’t the only restaurant on the eco-friendly bandwagon.
In fact, the GRA has certified several hundred restaurants as being environmentally friendly. A few of them are mentioned in the story, including one of the two Doc Green’s locations in Austin, Texas.
If you happen to live in Boston or Austin, write us a review of Grille Zone or the eco-friendly Doc Green’s if you are so inclined. Just post it in the comments below.
