Eat Green
Feel better about eating out by encouraging your favorite restaurants to go green. Check out these tips from idealbyte.
Wanna leave more than 15% next time you visit your fave restaurant?
The Bite
Tip more: Suggest to local eateries that they go green with their food and supplies (and in some cases it can even cut costs). Check, please.The Benefits
- Enticing planetary payoffs. For example, lowering energy use (such as installing efficient lighting) can make a big dent; restaurants consume more electricity than any other retail outlets…switching just one incandescent lightbulb to an energy-saving CFL can save $20-plus per year.
- More appetizing fare. Higher-quality, organic ingredients can only mean good things for your palate.
- If 10,000 Biters encourage their favorite restaurant to replace just one incandescent lightbulb with a compact fluorescent one, those restaurants will collectively save $296,000 on energy bills during the bulbs’ lifetimes.
- In the United States, half of the money that we spend on food, we spend at restaurants.
Personally Speaking
One of Jenifer’s favorite restaurants doesn’t serve free-range meats, but every time she goes in she asks for it. They haven’t switched yet, but at least three different waiters now know what free-range means.Wanna Try?
A few things you can suggest (on a comment card or just by asking – c’mon, don’t be shy):
- Recycling.
- Serving water only when people ask for some.
- Using local, organic ingredients where possible.
- Stocking biodegradable takeout utensils and containers.
- Opting for green cleaning products.
- Installing motion detectors in bathrooms so lights don’t stay on 24-7.
- Offering waste cooking oil to local biodiesel drivers.
More resources:
- Green Restaurant Association – nonprofit that certifies eco-restaurants; offers (only slightly preachy) printable comment cards you can leave with your waiter.
- National Restaurant Association – for restaurant owners; great tools for upping efficiency for lighting, water use, and more.
- Compassion Over Killing – check out this guide to restaurant outreach before you do it (geared toward vegetarians, but has pointers for nonveggies as well).
- Eat Well Guide – find restaurants that are already on the eco-ball.