Anna Sergeeva from "Bushe" spoke about the greening program for bakeries. In their network, they replaced disposable plastic appliances with wooden ones, portioned sugar with sugar bowls, plastic straws with paper ones, gave a discount to those who come with their own container, and replaced shoe covers with reusable ones at the production site.
Yulia Maksimova, coordinator of the "Eco-Horeca" project, said that the project itself began with the issue of reducing organic waste at landfills. There are more and more of them, and in order to use these wastes in compost, they must first be sorted. Very few restaurants sort organic waste into protein, plant foods, etc. But even 10 years ago, there were no questions and reduction of organic waste in the law on recycling, now the situation is changing.
Anna Voloshchenko, curator of the Local Food Market, shared a story about how difficult it was to explain to market participants why to refuse disposable tableware:
“They introduced a deposit container - participants from under the floor began to give ordinary disposable cups to guests - we closed this point. They explained this by the fact that consumers did not take the header container, they did not want to pay. Of the 60 participants of the festival, only 10-20 normally perceived the topic of ecology.” But we were persistent. After the first festival, our team hand-washed single-use plastic at a car wash to be recycled. Then we came up with a more economical system - we used two tanks, soaked the dishes in one, rinsed it in the second.
“They introduced a deposit container - participants from under the floor began to give ordinary disposable cups to guests - we closed this point. They explained this by the fact that consumers did not take the header container, they did not want to pay. Of the 60 participants of the festival, only 10-20 normally perceived the topic of ecology.” But we were persistent. After the first festival, our team hand-washed single-use plastic at a car wash to be recycled. Then we came up with a more economical system - we used two tanks, soaked the dishes in one, rinsed it in the second.
Rudolf Ahn, founder of the startup Eatme, said that food waste begins to form right in the factories. For example, apples may be thrown away because they are not red enough. A third of the world's food is thrown into the trash, with more than 40% fit for consumption. So he founded a service where restaurants can sell food at a discount, and people can save it.
Yana Bubnova, trading house "Albeta" expressed the opinion that moderation is needed in everything. The very tough position of environmental organizations often leads to the fact that restaurants do nothing at all for greening: “The manager of one cafe told us: “Why should I change plastic appliances for yours if environmentalists will still ridicule me for using disposable?”. As a result, the cafe continues to generate garbage that will decompose in landfills for hundreds of years. Although it could use appliances made from renewable wood from sanitary clearings, which will decompose in a year even in a landfill.”
Despite the fact that the event took place on Saturday evening, several dozen people gathered in the hall and the discussion was very active. What is indicative is that now not only environmentalists, but also businesses and consumers themselves are thinking about responsible consumption.
