Project Description
Reduce Reuse Recycle Greenpoint! (Restaurants)
Project Lead: | North Brooklyn Neighbors (formerly Neighbors Allied for Good Growth) |
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Project Partners: | Common Ground Compost; Brooklyn Allied Bars and Restaurants; and the North Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce |
Project Location: | Greenpoint-wide |
GCEF Grant: | $27,722 |
Matching Contribution: | $3,640 |
TOTAL INVESTMENT: | $31,362 |
Project Completed: | June 2017 |
PROJECT DESCRIPTION
In 2015, through a competitive process, North Brooklyn Neighbors (NBN) received a GCEF grant of $27,722 (and provided $3,640 in matching funds) to conduct a waste reduction campaign with Greenpoint restaurants to help divert waste from landfills. Major project activities involved: distributing questionnaires on waste reduction practices to 15 Greenpoint restaurants, selecting 6 restaurants to undergo waste audits and hands-on intensive waste reduction coaching from a professional restaurant sustainability consultant, and choosing 2 of the restaurants, Anella and Jimmy’s (no longer open) on Franklin Avenue, to take part in a pilot project focused on waste reduction using reusable takeout containers called “Shareware”.
The project’s website is at https://northbrooklynneighbors.org/project/reusable-takeout-container-pilot-program/
Featured image by Victoria Belanger, Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
PROJECT ACCOMPLISHMENTS
- Interviewed 15 restaurants and bars to create a best practice resource for local Greenpoint restaurants
- Created a Greenpoint specific educational brochure, hosted 2 educational workshops, and built a dedicated webpage for people in the restaurant industry to reference
- Selected 6 restaurants to participate in a waste audit, which found that 50% of each restaurant’s current landfill waste stream was recyclable or compostable
- Collaborated with 2 restaurants to launch a reusable takeout container program called “Shareware”
PROJECT PRODUCTS
RELATED MEDIA
This Greenpoint pilot program could be a game changer for food takeout waste in NYC (Brokelyn, December 15, 2016)
Greenpoint Restaurants Now Offering Reusable, Returnable Takeout Containers (Brooklyn Paper, December 15, 2016)
Can Reusable Takeout Containers ‘Take the Guilt Out of Takeout’? (Bedford + Bowery, December 9, 2016)
Jimmy’s & Anella Join Reusable Takeout Container Program – And You Can, Too! (Greenpointers.com, December 7, 2016)