First a statistic, the average restaurant produces about 100,000 lbs of garbage per year. That is 273 lbs a day on average! This garbage can range from paper, plastics, metals, packaging and so on. Most restaurants are using ridiculous amounts of products and or packaging that could easily be cut down with a little bit of thought and effort. One of our main issues is that we don’t think of these things because we usually are just repeating someone else’s model, hence why we are about to destroy our entire world. It seems all we care about is success and money. So much so that we’d rather have money than a planet, yet without the planet we can’t have money… go figure.
The good news is, people are changing and the consciousness on this planet is shifting! More and more people are starting to look at things in a new light and are dropping the old destructive habits. Of course big businesses do get in on it from time to time as they attempt to market all their “green” strategies and products, but most of this is just so they can sell more of whatever they produce. The real passion lies in people like Justin Vrany who runs a restaurant called Sandwich Me In which to date has produced ZERO waste.
That’s right, his Chicago restaurant is profitable all while producing no waste and having a blast while doing it. As he explains in the video below, most restaurants are producing about 8 gallons of garbage an hour, where as it took his restaurant 2 year to produce the same amount. Then he had an artist come pick it up to make a sculpture bringing his waste back down to zero.
How expensive is the food to be able to do this? All of his sandwiches are under $10 and they come with a side dish. On top of that, the meat and produce is all raised and grown locally. So while slightly more than what you’d pay at McDonald’s for their toxic and environment destroying food, you can go to Sandwich Me In and get something that’s both healthy and eco-friendly! Check out his story below.
