The Green Dining Alliance has been busy over the last year: we’ve grown to over 1oo members, added a new Green Dining District in The Loop, presented and tabled at community events, executed our first fundraiser, fought Styrofoam, and helped you – the diner – find places to eat that have made a commitment to making St. Louis more sustainable.
We’ve attended events by the US Green Building Council to learn more about energy efficiency, connected farmers with restaurants, collaborated with sustainability-focused nonprofits in the region, and helped restaurants to move away from Styrofoam to-go containers.
We visited a ton of farms and community gardens, went on ride-a-longs with the Missouri Sewer District to learn about the importance of clean grease traps, talked to Ameren and Laclede Gas about their incentive programs for efficient equipment, and joined the Environmental Protection Agency’s Food Recovery Challenge to help reduce the amount of food waste sent to the landfill – we even had a blogpost posted on the EPA’s website!
The garden for Kitchen House Coffee.
The GDA had a lot of love from the press in 2016, and we had more engagement on social media than ever before!
Through our partnerships with member restaurants, we have helped ensure that over 1,900 tons of recyclable and compostable materials did not go to the landfill. In industry terms, that’s called “waste diversion,” as in, we diverted these items from trashy destination point.
We love being a part of this community and we are so grateful for your support. We have big plans for 2017 – stay tuned for more.
