Earth Day – EC Green Practices
Earth Day occurs every year on April 22nd and we wanted to share a few of our favorite ways to reduce our carbon footprint. From our green practices that take place within our kitchen and food prep to the eco-friendly products being sold in our EC Home Store. It is our mission to measurably reduce our carbon footprint on the environment and to provide high quality food and beverage service with a sustainable, recyclable and local emphases on all products used in the course of our business. It is our goal to fully establish these practices throughout our catering events and continually learn about the newest developments in all areas of sustainability and implement changes as an ongoing practice of our business.
Therefore, we have used compostable boxes for our boxed lunches for last 10+ years. We have also always used the same recyclable flatware, that is made out of mostly potato starch, in our lunches and all other drop off events. To reduce the amount of unused food, we require all of our lunches to be created for at least 10 people which allows our kitchen staff to use full pieces of meat and vegetables with little to no wasted scraps.
Although our kitchen staff does their best to cut back on wasted food, there is still a good amount of food scraps that go unused which is why we have a composting company come in once a week to retrieve all waste. This company also takes any additional products of compost able materials and handles everything in a more Earth conscious way ensuring that there is a very small amount of waste going to a landfill. In addition to working with a composting company every week, we belong to The Illinois Food Scrap Coalition. Our kitchen also recycles all the oil used in the frying process of various food items.
In our EC Home Store, there are multiple products with many uses. For example, we use our Tula Cups and Maya Mugs for not only drinking but also as bowls for dips and other condiments. We’ve even seen people use the Maya Mugs as little planters for their air plants, succulents and cacti. Both of these products were designed to be extremely versatile throughout your home allowing you to get the most use out of them! Another sustainable product in our store is our NEW recycled glass water goblets. Sturdy with a touch of whimsical making these a great glass to have around for the somewhat “clumsy” guests you may welcome into your home, instead of offering plastic cups.
For our events, all of our staff members are encouraged to carpool and for any events outside of the city, we offer bus transportation to reduce the amount of cars being driven to an event. Our operations team works closely with our warehouse staff to refinish old wooden boards and unusable wine barrels to create brand new serving trays. This adds a few years of life to the wood as well as help us cut back on throwing out those items and buying something new.
