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In our last two posts for plastic-free-july we shone a spotlight on the landfills of Cape Town, where most of our waste ends up, and 5 businesses doing something about it. Now it’s time to bring it home and take you through a quick rundown of how we minimise our own waste at Nourish’d. Restaurants and cafe’s create huge amounts of waste compared to the average household and it’s totally unacceptable considering the vast amount of plastic poisoning our seas and soils. Nourish’d has chosen to lead by example, minimising our own waste and using our various platforms (social media, blog, stores) to promote waste-conscious ways of living. So stop accepting less than our planet deserves and use the information that we’re providing to confront and challenge other eateries that are polluting our planet! It’s really not that hard to operate in harmony with nature…
By ordering daily deliveries of fresh bread, fruit and veggies we make sure that nothing goes to waste because we order only what we need and the food is tastier too! Our amazing local baker has also been kind enough to omit plastic packaging from his deliveries and so has our glorious grocer-guy.
We make a huge effort to source all of our produce from in and around the Cape Town area. The vast majority of our fresh fruit and veg comes from the Philippi Horticultural Area, apart from a couple of things like mangos and pineapples that travel from a little further up the coast. By changing our menu to suit the seasonal availability of foods we eliminate the huge amount of CO2 it takes to import unseasonal items.
Sadly, though, the Philippi Horticultural Area (PHA) has come under threat due to poor government planning and urban development. If the PHA is unable to keep supplying fresh produce to Cape Town the city would have to start shipping in all the fruit and veg it needs. This would be an environmental and social tragedy. Fortunately, there are dedicated people working to save this vital growing zone: check out the PHA food and farming campaign to show your support and get involved.
The emergence of zero-waste stores like ShopZero and Nude Foods has provided us with an amazing opportunity to source most of our bulk, dried goods in plastic-free packaging. We’re so grateful to have such gorgeous eco-conscious places to shop. When the nude-stores don’t have what we’re looking for we put in an extra effort to contact suppliers directly, purchasing without plastic wherever possible.
With enamel plates, coconut-shell bowls, glass straws, compostable takeaway containers, wooden cutlery and glass bottles, Nourish’d manages to send out absolutely zero plastic from our kitchen. We also sell a host of zero-waste reusables like Eco Coffee Cups and bamboo straws and offer customers R5 off every coffee when they bring their own takeaway cup.
One of the biggest ways we reduce our waste is by serving all of our takeaway smoothies and power-shots in glass jars. This allows our customers to either bring them back for a refill/refund or re-use them at home. While most juice-bars use plastic due to it’s cheap cost, it costs the planet far more, and Nourish’d is willing to spend that extra cash for the sake of the environment. We also print directly onto our bottles eliminating the need for harmful plastic labels.
So, once we’ve sourced local produce, shopped at zero-waste stores and eliminated plastic as much as possible we are left with a small quantity of waste that we joyfully recycle. We use a company called RecycleFirst that does door-to-door recycling collection for as little as R80 per pick-up. The convenience and cost of this service is just too good to pass up and we can rest easy knowing that our recycling is professionally taken care of.
Although we try our hardest to operate zero-waste we know that we’re not perfect and we’re always open to suggestions. So if you have any tips please either talk to us in store or contact us via Facebook or Instagram, we’re always so happy to hear from you. If you feel you need any more info on places to shop zero-waste in Cape Town check out our latest blog post here, and we hope to see you soon <3.
One of the most powerful ways we can act as consumers is with our wallets. By choosing to visit eco-conscious cafe’s like Nourish’d you are effectively voting for what kind of restaurants you would like to see flourish in the future. Ultimately you have the power to choose how you would like to see life on this planet flow and grow.
Love,
Nourish’d