The Wolf Cafe in Ballwin has been committed to sustainability from the very beginning – from local sourcing of ingredients, to preparing nearly everything in house, to limiting the amount of waste that ultimately ends up in the landfill. They welcomed the opportunity to dig deeper into their practices in order to determine if there is more they could be doing.
The Green Dining Alliance provided The Wolf with a custom-designed waste tracking sheet to use as they worked toward goals of increasing diversion and reducing their total waste. The Wolf measured their waste over a month and a half. The results were better than anyone expected:
Compost: 73.4% | Recycling: 23.9% single stream | Landfill: 2.75% landfill
They report that the process of recording all waste data has made their staff more engaged and more aware of what gets thrown away. The Wolf is also helping the GDA develop a local case study on the impact and cost savings of lighting retrofits, tracking energy savings since installing LEDs into all light fixtures. They anticipate having complete results available by December. It is anticipated that they will see a significant energy cost savings over the course of the year.
