The Earth Tub

Question: What are some ways that hotels who produce large volumes of food sraps minimize wastes? Currently all food scraps are thrown into a large commercial compactor bin. Any ideas how this can be overcome and a more eco-efficient strategy adopted?

Answer: My local co-op recently implemented one solution for large amounts of food waste. It's called the Earth Tub, a commercial duty composter made for businesses like hotels and restaurants that produce large amounts of food scraps. It's a self-contained system that quickly composts food scraps, is easy to stir, and can be used year-round.

The Earth Tub is made by Green Mountain Technologies, specialists in composting technologies that describe their product as a perfect sustainable solution for businesses such as hotels:

The Earth Tub is a small scale, in-vessel composting system for recycling organic waste materials at the site where they are generated. Complete with a bio-filter for odor processing and control, this system provides a neighborhood friendly efficient composting technology. The Earth Tub has been developed specifically to meet the composting needs of universities/schools, restaurants/cafeterias, commercial food processors, hospitals, multi-unit residential dwellings, camps and other institutional organic waste generators.

The Earth Tub can process up to 500 pounds of waste a day, and it compacts as it composts. It is also a modular design so it's easy to expand. It is designed for food scraps, yard waste, and needs a bit of dry material like sawdust or shredded paper to control moisture levels. It sounds like a great solution for a large operation like a hotel, and then you could use the compost it creates in your landscaping.

In addition to a large composter, there are many practices that can be implemented to help reduce waste and become more eco-friendly in your operations. One idea is to adjust the portion sizes at restaurants so that less waste is produced. At most restaurants, the portion sizes are much too big for one person to finish in a meal (not that this keeps people from trying). Adjusting portion sizes can be a trial and error process until you notice that less food is thrown away.

Another option would be to change the types of meals you offer so there are more sustainable options. For instance, offering more vegan and vegetarian meals would not only make healthier food available to your customers, but plant-based foods are less wasteful to produce and thus more sustainable. This will also make more fodder for the Earth Tub, since the majority of food waste given to it should ideally be non-meat and non-dairy.

Other things you can do to become a more sustainable business are to source local and organic ingredients whenever possible. You could go as local as possible by growing some of your own ingredients! Herbs and spices are easy to grow in windowboxes, or on a larger scale, a rooftop garden could provide not only fresh ingredients, but insulation and increased energy efficiency. There are many things a hotel or other large business can do to become a more sustainable operation, from using natural laundry detergents and non-toxic cleaning materials to using an Earth Tub.

By adjusting your hotel operations and looking into composting options like the earth tub, I'm sure you can become a greener business. Don't forget to advertise all you're doing to be sustainable, it may just help attract new customers!