ZWZ: A Powerful Marketing Tool

Patrick Cuccaro

Zero Waste Zones Champion Patrick Cuccaro, Affairs to Remember (ATR) general manager, learned the easy way that green operating practices are good for business.  Implementing zero waste initiatives (recycling and food residual collection for composting) proved cost neutral and revenue rich.


The National Restaurant Association recognized Patrick Cuccaro with a profile on the NRA News Blog, Aiming for zero waste brings increased sales for caterer.  Read the profile for details on how Patrick's ingenuity and tenacity places ATR as a national leader in sustainability while proving green practices are good business practices.


Since launching the ZWZ-Caterers in the fall, 2009 as the Zone Champion, ATR has booked an estimated $165,000 due solely to their zero waste and other green operating practices.  As an off-premises caterer, ATR keeps the sustainability magic behind the scenes at their commissary kitchen and at client events. 


Understanding ZWZ is a powerful marketing tool, Patrick and his team created an understated, effective communication program of ATR's sustainability commitment from ordering and production to event execution and clean-up.  


According to Patrick, ""Fortune 500 companies are talking to us.  They're saying they believe in our mission of zero waste and are using us because of that, even if we cost more."

An ATR Sustainable Boxed Lunch

ATR researched and developed a 100% compostable boxed lunch filled with delectable food made with mostly local produce, at times coming from their chefs' garden.  The effort paid-off to the bottom line in 2010 when a 3,000+ boxed lunch order came in for a major Atlanta event.  So impressed with ATR's sustainability commitment, the client increased their budget to accommodate a higher price than the competitors.


Atlanta is fortunate to have powerful leaders who follow through on their vision and share with the industry.  See the ZWZ Blog post, ATL Zero Waste Team Hosts SC Hospitality Tour, where ATR hosted a "sustainable boxed lunch" during their northern neighbors ZWZ tour. Patrick and Executive Chef Ahmad Nourzad shared their zero waste experiences and fielded questions from the enthusiastic crowd.


Champions like Patrick Cuccaro are at the backbone of  Zero Waste Zones success. Thank you Patrick!

Get EmPOWERed at the USCC Conference

NEWS ALERT:  The Fall POWER - Perishable Organics Waste to Energy Recycling - fall meeting is officially rescheduled on January 18 at the U.S. Composting Councils Annual Conference in Austin, TX.  The POWER session follows the Wednesday morning plenary session.


Here is the session copy:

Get emPOWERed!  Attend the meeting of POWER (Perishable Organics Waste to Energy Recycling) to learn how the National Restaurant Association promotes post-consumer food residual recycling.  Lively presentations address the highest and best use for post-consumer food scraps and food & composting safety measures.  The session ends with closing the loop via urban agriculture using compost made from local restaurant food scraps.  Compost’s vital role in developing healthy soil, water & agricultural systems is emphasized throughout the session.  Support the foodservice industry with their POWERful role in diverting organics!

The POWER meeting is open to all USCC conference attendees.  Register NOW for the USCC Conference!


To learn more about prior POWER meetings, visit the 2011 Meeting page to download agendas and PPT presentations.  Prior year meeting information is available via links on the sidebar. 


Hope to see you in Austin this January for a POWERful meeting and conference!

Sustainability Inherent Within Plastic

Louis Herrera & Ben Mascarello
of Hilex Poly @ the Summit

Hilex Poly, the world's largest plastic bag manufacturer, hosted an Environmental Summit on October 06 at the Ballantyne Hotel in Charlotte, NC.  The well-attended summit was an opportunity for Hilex Poly to educate their customers on the sustainability inherent within plastic when best practices are followed.  The Ei FB album, 10-06-11 Hilex Poly Environmental Summit, gives a pictorial summit overview.

Phil Rozenski @ the podium

Phil Rozenski, Hilex Poly Director of Marketing & Sustainability, prepared an excellent program with topics ranging from the basics of sustainability (what is it?) to plastic recycling 101 to assistance available from the EPA's WasteWise program.  The session on greenwashing and FTC label regulations was excellent.


Not limited to plastic film recycling, Tasmin Ettefagh of ENVISION Plastics gave an invigorating presentation on High Density Polyethylene (HDPE - #4) recycling, including interesting anecdotes from its sometimes colorful history.  ENVISION developed EcoPrime, the first FDA approved post-consumer recycled HDPE resin in North America for food contact.  Tasmin ended her podium time with facts underlying the importance of plastics recycling:

• Production of recycled resin uses 90% less energy and emits 78% less greenhouse gases than virgin resin.
• Recycling plastics creates 6 times more jobs than landfilling recyclables and 36 more jobs than incineration.
• New petroleum is not used in the recycled resin pellet manufacturing 

Plastic film beginning the
recycling journey @
Hilex Poly's recycling plant

Attendees left the summit inspired to join Hilex Poly in their mission to recycle every plastic bag manufactured.  Collective action is necessary to change business and manufacturing practices.  As a global leader in plastic bag manufacturing, Hillex Poly plays a vital role in plastic recycling education and action.  

See the ZWZ Blog post, Getting a Handle on Plastic Recycling, for an overview of Simon Property Group's tour of Hilex Poly's North Vernon, IN plastic film recycling facility.  The Ei FB album, 07-01-11 Hilex Poly Tour in N. Vernon, IN, gives a pictorial tour recap.

It is time for the tides to turn and understand plastic is valuable resource that may be used over and over again.  Let's keep it out of landfills, oceans and incinerators and recycle it into new products.

Recycling Integrity Introduced @ NRA Quality Assurance Meeting

Addressing the integrity of the recycling stream is entering the mainstream.  In early October, the National Restaurant Association hosted their annual Quality Assurance Executive Study Group meeting in Atlanta.  A Recycling Integrity presentation by Zero Waste Zones Director Holly Elmore was intertwined into the October 04 Food Borne Illness session topic.


It was amazing to field questions from national chain and foodservice operator Quality Assurance executives and witness their understanding of how zero waste initiatives and food safety concerns are related.  Education is in order on the safety measures inherent within state-permitted composting sites to kill pathogens and any other food borne illness carriers.  Working with the U.S. Composting Council, Elemental Impact intends to communicate the bottom-line safety foundation, relating to food, leachate and air quality, inherent within the composting industry standards, permitting processes and operating practices.

HMSHost Tampa Airport
Conessions operations has an
excellent, safe food donation program

Another educational opportunity is the donation of  unsellable yet edible food from chain and quick service restaurant operations.  Many of the QA executives expressed legal concern over food donations and were not comfortable with the legal protection provided by the Good Samaritan Food Donation Act.  Working with the NRA and the Food Donation Connection, Ei intends to embark on a campaign to identity food treated as waste that has valuable nutrition for the underserved population.  Legal concerns and logistical challenges must both be addressed to keep edible food from the composting pile or the landfill.


Holly's Recycling Integrity PPT presentation may be downloaded on the ZWZ Speaking Engagements page.

The UGA Center for Food Saftey Team

The University of Georgia Center for Food Safety Team gave an impressive "Afternoon of Science Workshop" including seven 30 minute presentations.  The topics included:

• The E.coli Outbreak that Rocked Germany (and the Eu)
• Control of Foodborne Pathogens on Tomatoes
• Control of Norovirus During Food Handling
• Recent Trends on Norovirus Control Strategies
• Interventions to Control Salmonella on Poultry Farms
• Dry Foods:  Suddenly a Vehicle for Foodborne Disease
• Foodborne Parasites in Fresh Produce

After the intense presentations Scott Seydel, Ei Advisory Council Chair & Global Green Chair, and Holly joked they never knew handshaking and eating raspberries could present such microbial dangers.  It was an eyeopening afternoon.

Scott Seydel @ afternoon session

The day ended with a fun, relaxed evening at the GA Aquarium, complete with a private tour of the exhibits.  Kudos to Catherine Adams and her team for creating a stellar meeting series.   Thank you for the foresight to understand the role Recycling Integrity plays in the food safety component of restaurant operations.

A Visionary "Mines" Trash

In his July, 2011 TED, Ideas Worth Sharing video, We Can Recycle Plastic, recorded in Edinburgh, Scotland, Michael Biddle  gives an inspiring presentation on the technology evolution that may change the way we dispose of "our stuff".  With plastic integrated into most products ranging from automobiles to electronics to home appliances, bits and pieces of plastic along with whole plastic items are scattered throughout the waste stream.  The vast majority of this plastic is landfill destined.

piles of crushed autos filled
with plastic parts

Realizing steel has a higher recycling rate than more valuable plastic, Michael embarked on his journey to determine how to extract plastic from trash piles and recycling company reject streams.  The many grades of plastic present a sorting challenge as they have similar characteristics and density and may come in the same colors.  Bottom line:  current separation methods used in recycling facilities do not work for plastic.

Mike with valuable plastic
ready for separation

The initial stop in his journey was mining companies.  After all, Michael knew he was going to "mine" trash piles for valuable products and why not learn from the experts in the field.  


Mining the waste stream for plastic was the first and easier step.  The next phase was separation of  plastic by grade and color to deliver a pellet of greater value than virgin pellets.  Greater value comes not necessarily from the pellet themselves but from a production process that uses 5 - 10% of the energy used in virgin plastic manufacturing AND no new petroleum is required.

Valuable MBA  plastic pellets
ready for their next product

MBA Polymers, the company Michael founded, has three factories globally (California, China & Austria) with a technology suite that spins plastic into MBA's version of gold.  The system separates, sterilizes, melts, pelletizes and remolds recovered plastics from shredded electronics, computers and cars into a product as pure as virgin plastic.  No other additives are required for further production. 


Visionaries like Michael Biddle are the pioneers taking humanity into a new frontier, a necessary frontier as our Earth's resources are diminished at astonishing rates.  See the June ZWZ Blog post, Is Plastic Really Kin to the Devil?, where Michael is featured from an article Plastic Fantastic in Ode for Intelligent Optimists.


Michael ends his ten minute TED presentation with a clever statement about our disposable habits:  "If it is broken, It's Mike's stuff".  Watch the video to appreciate his conclusion and be inspired by Michael's ingenuity, tenacity and integrity.