I’ve often thought that ‘if’ I owned a restaurant that I’d have to have pigs somewhere to eat all the scraps.

That made me wonder if any restaurants do anything similar. Maybe they don’t have pigs out back, maybe they have a big old compost pile somewhere.

I found out that some restaurants do compost! No, not out in the rear of the restaurant, they join forces with commercial firms that handle food waste.

Some restaurants already donate unused food to their local food banks. Some eating places have big containers out back for used cooking oil, to be reused in biofuels. Now, some have managed waste food too. They have it hauled to a local giant compost facility.

Seems the FDA has been promoting composting by restaurants for ages. They even funded a program in California. The latest city to come on board the composting wagon is Atlanta. EnviRelation is the place restaurateurs should contact in the Atlanta area.

EnviRelation provides DAILY collection for food discards and transports them to nearby composting facilities.

This industrial composting is a win-win situation. The restaurant owners win by saving money on waste management costs, as well as improved operational sanitation. Low prices and daily pickup insure cleaner loading areas, improvement of the back of the restaurant ‘smell’, clean composting containers and less PESTS! Consumers win by knowing that the restaurant they visit participates in such an environmentally friendly program and we all win when something is as good for the earth as composting, especially on an industrial scale.