Ecologic Foodservice Solutions

Take a second and think about all the elements that go into the efficient administration and operation of a hospital. Go on. I am waiting. Did eco-friendly disposables come into your mind? Probably not. However, at St. Vincent's Medical Center in Bridgeport, Connecticut, hospital management and staff made a big leap in reducing our collective carbon footprint and eliminating the health risks associated with using plastic disposables.

Hospitals typically go through hundreds of thousands of cups, plates, bowls and other disposable products every year. St. Vincent's reported a staggering 1,194,000 cups were used and tossed each year. This waste adds up -- particularly when the items in question are made of polystyrene foam, more commonly known as Styrofoam.

In an effort to reduce public health problems and help create and maintain a greener world, hospitals countrywide are phasing out products made of plastic foam, which resists biodegradation and is not always accepted by recycling programs.

EPA studies conducted in the 1980s showed that 100% of Americans have Styrene in their bodies. Since Styrene is used in all kinds of applications, including injecting it directly into foods to preserve their shelf life, we are all exposed without our knowledge.

More testing is not the answer, though. When you look at what is already known, banning polystyrene now makes a lot of sense. 15% of all litter in urban areas is polystryrene. It is the second most common form of man-made debris on our beaches. Cleaning up polystyrene litter costs California taxpayers billions of dollars each year. What isn't collected in clean-ups gets widely distributed in the environment. Birds, fish, filter feeding marine organisms, and other animals mistake it for food. Many seabirds are dying of starvation with stomachs full of plastic." Worker and consumer health is also at risk.

Polystyrene (Styrofoam^™) may seem like a cheap convenient material, but that is because its true costs to health and our environment are borne by others, including taxpayers and consumers. California must ban polystyrene take-out food containers. They are not recyclable, and safer, more sustainable alternatives are available.

It took 15 years to do it, but San Francisco has finally reached the arbitrary milestone of collecting one million tons of compostable organic waste. While San Francisco has been a leader in the composting world for the last two decades, the pounds really started rolling in back in 2009 when the city enacted the nation’s most strict regulations on composting, requiring all businesses and residences to collect and separate compostable waste. It’s part of the city’s effort to reduce the amount of waste it sends to landfill almost completely by 2020.

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Hospitals are known for having sick people but they contain even more hungry people: In the case of St. Joseph Hospital, 100 beds worth of them, plus hundreds of staffers and volunteers.

The result is lots and lots of food thrown out, which really annoys Mark McKenna - who, among other things, oversees the hospital's trash-disposal budget.

"We've been recycling since 2009, and this just seemed like the next natural step," said McKenna, director of hospitality services.

In November, the hospital began a food-composting system, separating all food scraps during preparation in the kitchen so they can be picked up and turned into natural fertilizer instead of landfill filler.

"It was maybe a little bit difficult in the beginning, but not any more," said Elena Kharina, a cook, gesturing at a "slim jim," a type of trash can. "We throw all food there."

The result is good for the environment - and doesn't hurt the bottom line, McKenna said.

Waste that's sent to a Haverhill incinerator costs $78.50 a ton to get rid of, plus a $121 hauling fee; compostable food costs $35 a ton to get rid of, with a $40 hauling fee. This isn't much money in the scheme of the $950,000 food budget, since the hospital generates about 11/2 tons of food waste a month, but every bit helps.

McKenna says he worked on the project for nearly a year before it could be started, largely because it was hard finding somebody to pick up the separated food.

The food is picked up once a week by New England Solid Waste Consultants Inc. in Rowley, Mass. - the only major hauler for it in the region.

Food waste makes up nearly 20 percent of business for the New England Solid Waste, said owner Roy Ferreira Jr.

On September 30, the Sustainable Biomaterials Collaborative (SBC) and the Business-NGO Working Group will release the Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Specifications for Compostable Biobased Food Service Ware—also known as “BioSpecs.” The BioSpecs, which have been under development for two years by a broad coalition of stakeholders, will be introduced to industry leaders at the Biopolymer Symposium 2009 in Chicago.