Скачать или смотреть London restaurant ditches single-use plastics

(25 Sep 2019) LEAD IN:
A London restaurant has decided to ditch all single-use plastics.
Spring Restaurant, near Covent Garden, hopes to encourage the city's 15,500 eateries to follow suit and end the industry's environmental impact.

STORY-LINE:
When sous chef Frederick Page looks through the pantry at Spring Restaurant, he sees pots, pans and tins - but not plastic clingfilm.
It's an item usually conspicuous in the food industry, but none of the food arriving to - or kept at - the restaurant is covered in plastic wrapping.
Instead, alternatives are found. In this case, lids made of metal, glass or plastic, which are kept rather than thrown away.
Spring, based in London's Somerset House, has committed to not using any single-use plastics, including clingfilm or straws.
The project began when staff challenged themselves in January 2018 to be single-use plastic free by the end of 2019 - they've already achieved that goal.
Skye Gyngell, owner of Spring Restaurant, explains guests are responding to the restaurant's efforts to be more sustainable.
"Probably what people respond to as customers coming to Spring more than anything, more than the room, more than the food, is what we do around sustainability," she says.
Admittedly, she says it's hard work to avoid single-use plastics.
"It's more work because we have to be alert. But I think being alert and taking care not to lose something, I think the planet absolutely deserves a little bit more care and attention, I don't think it's too much to ask and it hasn't been a problem for us," says Gyngell.
To get staff fully involved, Gyngell brought all of the team into work on a day off to watch an environmental documentary, followed by a brainstorming session to devise ways of achieving their goal.
It seemed achievable - they had already replaced plastic straws with a corn starch alternative in November 2017.
The team nominated 'plastic ambassadors' on every section of the restaurant - bar, kitchen and front of house - to address the issue, and started eliminating each single-use plastic product, one-by-one.
They went cold-turkey on cling film, but still found single-use plastic throughout their restaurant.
The paper cups used for ice cream scoops had plastic inner linings, it was tricky to find toilet paper without plastic wrapping, but staff worked hard to overcome the challenge.
Pens were replaced with pencils. Plastic folders were replaced with paper substitutes.
Toilet paper with bamboo wrapping was eventually discovered, but the cost almost doubled that of other brands.
The solution: staff agreed to wash their hands with dishcloths instead of using paper towels, saving money that could be spent on toilet roll in bamboo packaging.
Gyngell says one big success was buying reusable lids for metal containers, pots and pans.
She says the total investment of going single-use plastic free was about 1,200 British pounds (approx. $1,500 USD).
By contrast, the restaurant would have spent 800-1,000 British pounds per-year on cling film alone.
Sous chef Frederick Page says the changes have barely had an impact on the restaurant's workflow.
"It's quicker to change a gastro (meal container), because everyone changes the container, and instead of wrapping it in clingfilm, you just pop a lid on it," he says.
"I think everyone who's connected with food, if you're a chef or you're a producer has some sort of connection to that natural world, and as soon as you hear how bad plastic is to the natural world, I think it makes sense to stop using it."
Some suppliers stopped working with Spring, others have listened and changed, says Gyngell.

Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork
Twitter:   / ap_archive  
Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​
Instagram:   / apnews  


You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...