Best Practices

Warm Weather Composting

Warm Weather Composting

Summer, summer, summertime! The sun is out, the birds are chirping, the days are longer and your organic scraps are getting…warmer. Don’t worry, we have a few tips to help keep your bins clean, reduce odors and keep unwanted guests away throughout the season. While we do the dirty work of picking up, sifting through and composting your food scraps,…

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Cleaner Loads: Clothing, Textiles & Dryer Lint

Cleaner Loads: Clothing, Textiles & Dryer Lint

Trends come and go and kids outgrow their clothes at the blink of an eye. This surplus of unwanted articles of clothing can make it difficult to know how to dispose of these items properly, especially when affordable clothing tends to be made of synthetic materials. What’s the difference between synthetic fibers and natural fibers? Natural fibers are derived from…

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Sustainable Chefs: Tony Hull

Sustainable Chefs: Tony Hull

While some of us find it daunting to put together a meal for a small group, Chef Tony Hull doesn’t flinch at having hundreds of guests for a single meal. As the Executive Chef of the JW Marriott in Washington, DC, his events can include upwards of 1,000 people for lunch or dinner.  By his estimates, the hotel’s kitchen staff…

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Compostable Plastic Consumer Guide

Compostable Plastic Consumer Guide

Compostable plastics are a step in the right direction when it comes to reducing single-use plastics, but choosing the “right” compostable plastic when you’re at a restaurant or in the grocery store can be overwhelming. How to shop for compostable plastic Because products are being marketed as sustainable using several buzzwords, it can be difficult to understand exactly what you’re…

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Sustainable Chefs: Olivier “Liv” Caillabet & Zack Sanders

Sustainable Chefs: Olivier “Liv” Caillabet & Zack Sanders

Welcome back to our sustainable chef series, where we’re connecting with local chefs to spotlight their ingenuity and creativity as they work to reduce waste in the kitchen. In our first installment, we featured Rob Rubba from Oyster Oyster.  Food waste is a big issue on both a local and international scale, and a push toward food waste reduction in…

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Reducing Waste at Thanksgiving

Reducing Waste at Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a holiday focused on appreciating everything you have — both in a tangible and intangible sense. The act of being thankful for our food and other possessions can help contribute to minimizing waste. Studies have shown that food waste increases more than 25% during the time period between Thanksgiving and Christmas, making Thanksgiving a great time to focus…

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Our Thoughts on Phasing out Compostable Liners

Our Thoughts on Phasing out Compostable Liners

By: Kristie Blumer, Organic Solutions Sr. Manager It’s undeniable: the use of kitchen caddies and kitchen caddy liners has helped so many families give food scrap recycling a try for the first time. For that reason alone, they definitely deserve a place in the community composting sphere. The real question, however, is whether or not liners really make a substantial…

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