A Special Moments employee gets ready to begin the composting process”
Our long-term goals include a kitchen run completely from solar panels, trucks running from bio diesel or electric, and menus that focus 100 percent on locally grown and raised products. Our first step was a simple one: recycle everything. We were the only company in our strip mall to request a recycle bin from the city and to fill it on a regular basis. Keep in mind most trash that we create is ether cardboard boxes, paper or cans. We implemented our recycling program immediately, adding blue cans to our kitchen, offices and back-of-the-house locations.
We also have a food compost program. This is something we are very excited to be a part of. It’s the process of taking organic waste and turning it into fertilizer. In fact, it’s some of the best fertilizer you can put in your garden or flower beds. The process is very easy. We have buckets that we keep in our kitchen’s prep stations for food waste. Our staff, instead of putting that material in the trash, takes it out to 55-gallon barrels we store in the back of our building. Adding bokashi keeps the contents from smelling bad and aids in the breakdown of the organic items. We have partnered with a local vendor named Recycled City that comes once a week and removes the 55-gallon drums and gives us new, clean ones. It’s hard to believe, but we fill four to five of these drums each week. That equates to more than 200 gallons of compostable material that could have gone in the trash.
Recycled City takes the compost material to a farm and places it in large piles. After a month or so the breakdown process is complete and compost fertilizer is now ready for use. The majority of the fertilizer goes to community gardens that grow organic crops for the less fortunate. The rest of the compost is given back to the customers to use in their own gardens. It’s truly an incredible program.
Our company now offers a full line of compostable eating utensils and plates in its everyday service to help expand the reach of our Sustainable Initiative. We will be rolling out an onsite compost program within the next month, allowing all customers to have the ability to compost their items.
Learn more about Special Moments Catering and its sustainability efforts at specialmomentsaz.com.
Brad Taylor is vice president of Special Moments Catering
