How Much Waste do your Restaurants ACTUALLY Produce?

In the restaurant business, waste management is an important part of everyday operations. If it’s not done correctly, it can become a time-consuming hassle and all-around nightmare before you know it. On top of that, reducing waste is important for your business because it saves you money and makes you look like a superhero to your boss and it shows your customers that you are a good steward of the environment. When you consider the importance of the trend of being transparent with customers concerning food ingredients, the same principle applies to the idea of being transparent about waste reduction and landfill diversion. It’s easy to get stuck focusing on just food waste – it is the main focus of consumers, but your customers need to know that you’re doing more to be socially and environmentally responsible.

Individual Waste Streams

If you think about one single restaurant location, there are several forms of waste that you deal with on a daily basis:

food waste
used cooking oil
cardboard
paper
plastics
glass
grease trap waste

Those 7 main forms of waste streams alone account for 4-5 different vendors just by themselves for just one location. Now mix in the complexities of several locations in several states and the number of vendors you have to deal with multiplies exponentially.

Special Circumstances

Now, consider special situations like renovations or new construction. There are now other factors and waste streams to consider:

construction debris
e-waste
hazardous waste
temporary open top containers

Technically, these waste streams are part of your overall waste generated per location. If you’re measuring landfill diversion by the ton, just one construction project that is not managed correctly could lead to dozens of tons of waste being thrown away instead of diverted from the landfills. Also, this opens your facilities managers up to a whole new group of vendors to manage. At some point there is almost no time left in the day after these managers are done dealing with all of the vendors it requires to remove trash and recycle waste properly. One form of waste no one considers is TIME.

That’s where Quest Comes In…

Imagine being able to have one point of contact for every type of waste your locations create, along with a that makes sure that you’re diverting as much waste from landfills as possible. On top of that, all of the data for the materials you recycle and dispose of is tracked so that you can PROVE to your customers that your brand is as environmentally-friendly as possible. That is exactly what Quest can do for you restaurants, and we can do it at a better price point that you’ll get by working with a collection of separate vendors.
Everyone agrees: saving money is great. Getting a higher level of service that saves you time AND money, all while providing you the data you need to maintain a positive perception with your customers – seems too good to be true. We assure you, it’s not. It’s just what we do here at Quest. We currently manage the waste and recycling programs for 20,000 customer locations from coast-to-coast across North America, and we can manage your locations as well. Contact us today to see exactly how Quest can help you save time, spend less and recycle more.

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