Making your Parlour more Sustainable
January 02, 2019
Running our Marshfield Farm on-site parlour has opened our eyes to many of the environmental issues our stockists hold: confusion over recyclable material, the problems with single-use items and excesses of food waste to name a few. We’ve created the list below with our recommendations on practises you can follow to become more environmentally friendly before, during and after service.
Recycling 1,2,3
- Contact your local council for details on their recycling policy, including the plastics they’re able to collect and your bin collection days. The BBC have found across the UK's councils there are 39 different sets of rules on what can be put in plastic recycling collections. The website Recycle Now allows you to input your postcode for a full breakdown on your council’s waste policy.
- Did you know compostable and biodegradable items are not recyclable and if they enter the recycling system they can cause quality issues in recycled material? With over 50 different types of plastics alone, avoid your waste becoming contaminated (and therefore not collected) by recycling the correct products. Carefully check the packaging to identify if it is recyclable or not. This webpage will tell you exactly what you can do with individual items. Due to the current waste infrastructure we have decided as a company to not invest in biodegradable and compostable products, knowing many councils are only able to respond to plastic recycling.
- Empty and clean your recyclable items from food contamination. Be wary of wasting food too: turn leftover cake slices into Freakshake decorations and broken cones into sundae toppings. The government have released the ‘Resources and Waste Strategy’ with an entire chapter dedicated to cutting down on food waste. In their report it states: “We are fully committed to reducing food waste, reducing our carbon footprint, and also meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goal to halve global food waste at consumer and retail levels by 2030.”
By following the above steps we hope you’re able to regulate and control your recycling in your parlour, restaurant and other premises.
Consumer Facing
We know how important it is to be customer facing in the measures you take. Follow our tips below for immediate sustainable changes you can make on your premises.- Have posters/signs that clearly show where your customers can recycle their waste
- When able, offer glassware as opposed to single use take-away items. Alternatively, offer your customers keep cups or reusable branded cups instead of single-use coffee cups.
- Swap your single-use plastic take-away items to wooden. We buy our parlour items from a range of places but your wholesaler are likely to stock these too. Click on each link to purchase these items online
- wooden ice cream spoons and forks
- wooden trays (not polyester)
- paper straws (ensure they are not plastic lined, or they won’t be recyclable)
- 5 litre Napoli and 4 litre tubs are a great resource to hold onto for storage solutions in busy kitchens. If you can’t reuse these yourself, sell these on at a small charge (50p - £1) or donate to nursing homes/community kitchens etc.
- Stop using plastic bags or offer bags for life at a charge. We’ve purchased Marshfield Branded Jute bags, follow this link to make your own logo-ed bags
- We’d say 90% of our customers would choose an ice cream cone over a pot, giving you the opportunity to remove single-use one/two/three scoop tubs from your offering. If this is something you think will work for your site, make sure you have dairy-free and gluten free cones on hand
- Offer free water top-ups in customer’s own drink containers and don’t sell bottled water. The Refill app is a great resource to get your site seen as pro-active