Sea la vie Restaurant

I read with interest the article in today’s Sydney Morning Herald (Monday 14th April 2008) about recycling (Pressure builds on ministers to tackle e-waste - page 3).  The tenet of the article is that “Australians are still estimated to be one of the biggest waste producers per head in the world after the US, creating 28 million tonnes of garbage each year“.  How sad!  Furthermore, only 36% of glass and 31% of plastic is recycled.  How even sadder!!

We Australians know and can do better than that!  Recycling is not always easy, but it becomes a habit and it has to be intentional.

Recycling in a restaurant is not easy either.  Restaurants, certainly in our local Council (Warringah Council), have to pay to have their glass, plastic and paper recycled.  Yes, that’s correct, the Council doesn’t come along and remove our recycling.  We have to be intentional and contract a garbage company to remove our recycling (same too with our regular garbage).

The removal, whilst it adds to the financial burden of an already tight industry, is the easy part.  As an owner, I have to be intentional and have my staff be intentional too, to recycle what we can and as much as we can.  We at Sea la vie are not perfect but we try.  We have a cardboard box that we put papers in before they are removed and placed in our large green recycling bin.  Same too with our used bottles, we place used bottles (plastic, wine, soft drinks, milk etc.) in a crate and when full, place the “empties” in our yellow lidded recycling bins.

Sea la vie is trying to do its bit and help our environment.  Every little bit accumulates and becomes BIG bits, but most of all, it is all about being INTENTIONAL!!