CompostAble Chicago Study Finds Four Pillars for Successful FOH Composting Programs
Posted by Eco-Products on Oct 5th 2022
Eco-Products is excited about the recent publication of a new study: CompostAble Chicago.
The CompostAble Chicago study is sponsored by FPI in collaboration with Biodegradable Products Institute (BPI), Eco-Products, Illinois Food Scrap Coalition (IFSC), Plant Based Products Council (PBPC), and Sustainable Packaging Coalition (SPC). Research and waste sorts were conducted by Resource Recycling Systems (RRS) and Bright Beat.
Summary of the report:
The study examines several existing organics recovery programs that accept compostable foodservice packaging, the materials they recover, and the operating conditions that contribute to successful programs.
The study’s findings suggest venues that adopt compostable foodservice packaging, under favorable operating conditions, should be expected to collect more food scraps in front-of-house (FOH) compost streams. In addition, contamination levels were also seen to trend lower with stronger adoption of compostable items.
The operating conditions are similar to what we’ve been sharing with our operators all along, and fall under Procurement, Operations, Communication, and People.
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Together we can use compostable food service packaging to help get more valuable food scraps to our composters, and under the proper operating conditions, with reduced contamination. Keeping both food scraps and single use food service ware out of our landfills is the ultimate goal!
The study, along with a Methodology Guide and Waste Sort Data Entry Template, are available for free download on FPI’s website.
What’s next from Eco-Products?
Phase 1: Keep an eye out for social media posts and please share with your networks. This information can also be used with packaging hesitant composters, or operators starting or revamping their Zero Waste programs.
Phase 2: The PZW team, Sustainability Maven and Marketing teams will work on updating our Zero Waste toolkit for operators, with the hope of a release in Q4. It will outline how operators can successfully set up or enhance their Zero Waste operations, and how to reduce contamination for composters. It will focus on the 4 operating pillars listed above and go deep into other best practices we already know WORK! We will share more information with you once that is available.
Let’s Put Waste to Work.