In this blog post we give you three things:
1. Explain how to recycle plastic bags for FREE
2. A Freebie offer with RIDWELL
Part of our vision at San Mateo Supper Club is to strengthen our local food economy and deliver high quality meals to our community along with supporting sustainable processes and products. For example, delivery bags are high-quality insulated fabric--and we retrieve them from you when we bring you a new order. We ask that you return our water bottles that we use as ice in the bags you return, and we clean and re-use them along with the bags. We literally run those bags through the washing machine! When you first order from us, we use lighter, multi-layer plastic bags that are recyclable with our goal being to move everyone to the more sustainable, washable insulated fabric bags.
We also use compostable containers and some valuable recyclable aluminum containers that you can place directly in your ovens. This saves both time and waste (they do need to be rinsed out for proper recycling), and we can all be certain they will be accepted by our recycling facilities and actually recycled. We also shop for a large quantity of people and families each week--and we buy in bulk--so collectively we reduce the overall carbon footprint of our community when you order meals because we serve many families in the community, unlike Door Dash that is connecting a single order from a single family from a single restauarnt, we batch our deliveries daily.
SHIPPING TRASH TO CHINA
You may or may not be aware, but the world of recycling in the US changed dramatically about a decade ago when China stopped buying large quantities of "low grade" recyclables from the USA under new policies called Green Fence and National Sword passed in 2013 and 2018, respectively. As a result, literally millions of pounds of "recyclables" ended up in landfills for the past decade or more. You can read a much more detailed review of what actually gets recycled in the Bay Area blue bins in THIS ARTICLE published recently. The article covers a lot of great developments in recycling in our country--and our local counties--since the US stopped shipping most of it overseas to China. The major point is that just because we put it in that blue bin it doesn't mean it actually gets recycled--a huge percentage of plastic goes to landfill on a regular basis, still.
EVIL PLASTIC & HOW TO RECYCLE IT FOR FREE
As you probably know, you cannot put plastic bags, plastic film and plastic mailers in the recycle bin, and even if you do, they end up landfill. The reason they aren't accepted at Recology is they get stuck and jam in the recycle facilities' sorting machines. They are truly hard to avoid--even though we are now charged for bags at stores, and most everyone is much better at bringing their own bags, there is still a lot of plastic that goes through every household. However, there is a way to recycle them for free through Trex. Trex buys these plastics and uses them to make their decking and other products. You can recycle all of these FOR FREE at your local Safeway in California. At most every Safeway, you'll see an inconspicuous (usually pretty thrashed looking) bin that says "Recycle Plastic Bags". You can bring all your CLEAN AND DRY plastic bags, plastic film, plastic mailers and put them here FOR FREE. Here is the one down the street at the Safeway here in Belmont:
It's pretty incredible, and I've personally been doing this for a long time. I hope you do it, too, because together we can greatly reduce the amount of plastic we send to landfills. You can learn more about this program through Trex HERE, and see how they are the country's largest plastic recyling program. It's pretty inspiring.
A FREEBIE AND ABOUT RIDWELL
We know that many of our customers have RIDWELL already because we see their distinctive bins on your porches. For those of you who don't know about RIDWELL, they are a start-up company that collects plastic, styrofoam, clothing, batteries, and a whole host of other items that are generally either difficult to recycle, or are not accepted in our county blue recycle bins. For a small monthly fee, they provide you with a bin and reusable fabric bags, and very clear instructions on what they accept. What is most amazing about them is they truly recycle 97% of what they collect. You can learn more about them HERE. So, instead of collecting and taking your bags down to Safeway, you can have your plastics and styrofoam & other hard-to-recycle items collected right from your front porch.
San Mateo Supper Club is subscribed to their unlimited plan, and we clean, dry and collect as much plastic and multi-layer plastics & styrofoam from our operations as possible. So not only are we helping our community reduce our carbon footprint by bulk shopping, bulk buying and bulk deliveries, we are also very consciously keeping plastics, styrofoam and multi-layer plastics out of landfills. We have found this reduces our "regular" garbage by 30%!!!
While we can see RIDWELL is getting paid by Trex to collect plastic--they are doing so much more. We told them a little about our company, and about you, and they gave us a code you all can use to get your first month for free HERE.
And you can share the free month trial link with anyone, if you like: https://www.ridwell.com/promotions/ms-free-month-trialÂ
HOW TO USE OLD CLOTHES TO GET 15% OFF AT H&M
One of the categories of collection with Ridwell is clothing and fabric. We send our fabric bags there when they fall apart in our washing machines, which they do eventually fail after many, many uses. It's just one more small piece of our sustainability practices. However, if you have children, school is just a month away and you may be in the market for some new school clothes, or maybe you need an outfit for that wedding you have to attend soon. Well, if you're a member at H&M, you can bring in a bag of used (clean) clothing--or even mail it to them--and they will give you a digital coupon for 15% off!! You can learn about the program HERE. Becoming a member is easy and free, by the way.
So that's it! We wanted you to know that we take our vision seriously. Not only do we care about bringing you the best, high-quality meals that we can by using good-for-you oils and high quality ingredients (many of them organic), we plan and execute our vision all the way through our kitchen operations and waste management. When we say we want to "build community" it's not just getting to know you & your preferences and allergies, it's about making the meals as good-for-you as we can and doing it in a way that leaves the lightest footprint possible.
We can't wait to serve you.
And our menu for next week is available and you can order now HERE.
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