Sustainability at the Co-op
The Food Co-op has always had a strong commitment to environmental stewardship.
And while we take measuring and reporting on our sustainability practices seriously, we have some programs to keep it fun and interesting.
Keep Scrolling to learn more!
Do you want to learn some new techniques for living a more sustainable life?
Everyone’s journey is different, but we are here to help……
WHERE DO I START?
It’s helpful to establish why you want to reduce the amount of waste that your household produces. Use our brochure as a focus to stay motivated!
Remember, it is not only about buying Zero Waste items. Reuse what you have, then replace with more sustainable choices. It can take years to transition to Zero Waste.
Choose what works for you. We all have different lifestyles and if something doesn’t feel right or you are struggling, put it aside for later. Focus on one thing that you can change and find a system, that works for you.
Check out our CLASS CALENDAR to learn more. We host classes on zero waste, composting, gardening, and some DIY fun.
Keep scrolling down for additional resources.
What is Zero Waste?
USE IT UP, WEAR IT OUT, MAKE IT DO, OR DO WITHOUT
First of all, what is Zero Waste? Zero Waste is simply the lifestyle choice of reducing trash. It looks at a system of how things are made, used and disposed of. It seeks to reduce the amount of trash in landfills by choosing products that are less toxic, can be recycled, reused or composted and made in a sustainable manner. Get started with our Zero Waste Brochure.
What is the Jar Saver Program?
Enjoy plastic free bulk shopping by utilizing our jar saver program. Drop your clean, label free, wide mouth glass jar with lid off at our jar saver location. We sanitize it to meet the Jefferson County Health Department codes. Jar is weighed and tared and then placed in our bulk area for customer use. Please make sure you follow rules so we can continue to provide this service.
How It Works.
The way the program works is that customers bring in their extra jars and place them in a bus tub at the Recycle Island located in the community board hallway. Staff sanitize them in our dishwasher, weigh them, write tare weights on them, and have them available in the bulk department for customers to use—free of charge.
Jars must fit certain criteria to be acceptable for reuse according to rules given to us from the health department. Jars that are acceptable must:
Be wide-mouth jars (i.e. no bottles)
Be free of labels
Have properly fitting lids*
Any jars that do not fit these criteria, must be recycled, rather than put into the Jar Savers program.
*Since the deli has wide-mouth lids for canning jars, we can take wide-mouth canning jars back even if they do not have a lid.
What is our GREEN team up to?
The mission of the Food Co-op is: Working together to nourish our community. This mission also includes seven values one of which is Stewardship: We steward our resources to sustain and regenerate our community.
In the spirit of stewardship, the Green Team was first formed when I joined the staff at this Co-op as I wanted to involve workers at all levels to help our business be more sustainable. We’ve taken on many projects over the years from promoting “May is Bike to Work Month” to beach clean ups to digging into our trash and measuring our waste output. Work includes problem solving, promoting the culture of recycling with team trainings and bringing relevant emergent topics to our meetings for discussion.
This year we are working on several projects. In February we conducted a sign audit; reviewing all recycling and waste stations at our store, especially in the back rooms (where the magic happens!) to ensure signage is clear and consistent throughout our workplace. We discovered it is not and so are in the process of redesigning our signage on all containers. In March the team took a field trip to Jefferson County Recycling Center so we could better understand how we can help be better recyclers, what happens to our recyclables once they leave our store, and what the challenges are for the complex system we currently employ.
We recruit members from all levels and departments of the co-op by asking managers to nominate candidates or staff to self-nominate. Team members are paid for their time at both meetings and on special projects like audits.
Team members commit to attend meetings and presentations, helping organize events (such as waste audits), share enthusiasm and knowledge with co-workers and serve as a resource to those in their departments and company wide. Green Team members also become well versed in our current sustainability programs. Together we are working to steward our resources to sustain and regenerate our community.
Sustainability Reports
Satsumas and Trees.