NSW EPA-Cafes-Restaurants-Factsheet.pdf - Reducing business...

1
Serve great food with green benefits
Reducing business waste – Cafés and restaurants
Quick fact
Each year a typical café
or restaurant generates
up to 17.5m
3
of waste
per employee, or 1.7m
3
of waste for every 1m
2
of
floor space
2
.
Businesses in NSW could recover an additional 140,529 tonnes of food
waste or prevent 281 million meals from going to landfill each year
1
.
Food waste fills over 60% of the bin of an average café or restaurant,
with paper and cardboard occupying another 18%
2
. That means
about 80% of the bin contents could be recycled or recovered instead
of going to landfill.
Seventy-five per cent of cafés, restaurants and accommodation
businesses agree that reducing waste and increasing recycling is
part of being a sustainable and ethical business
3
.
Fifty-three per cent of businesses agree that efficient waste and
recycling gives them a competitive edge
3
.

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Contents of a typical waste bin in a café or restaurant
Want to save on waste?
Join 20,000 businesses already
recycling more with the EPA’s Bin Trim
Program. Get free advice and support to
waste less and recycle more. Get up to
$50,000 back on recycling equipment.
Find a Bin Trim assessor online .
Typical waste profile of a cafe or restaurant (% weight of waste generated)
2
Plastic wrap, bags
and plastic containers
Other (wood, textiles,
steel and residual waste)
Co-mingled/mixed recycling
Food waste
Paper and cardboard
4%
4%
18%
62%
12%

3
Coffs Harbour
restaurant
reduces waste by
130,000 kg
Hello Sawtell managed to
reduce its waste to landfill
by over 130,000 kg per year
through the EPA’s Bin Trim
Program. The restaurant
worked with Handybin Waste
Services Coffs Harbour to
improve the separation of
food waste and educate
staff on the materials to
place in each recycling bin.
The restaurant now has six
(120-litre) food organics
recycling bins collected
three times a week for
reprocessing. An additional
11,000 kg of paper towels
are also recycled. Join Bin
Trim now .