We’re not obsessive about sustainability at Bazaar … well, maybe just a little! We resolved early in our journey to make choices that would be gentle to the earth.
It’s not perfect, and every day poses trade-offs. We thought we’d share our journey so other small businesses and customers can understand what we’ve found do-able – and where we still wish for solutions.
Claim your Own Cup discount if you’re in the cafe!!
Pastry Vendors
While we love to partner with creative food vendors for cookies, gluten free goodies or pastries, we don’t want individually wrapped goods! That reduces our options considerably – which just means we have to work harder to sniff out delicious options!
This is one reason we turned to baking our biscuits, bundts and cookies in-house. Life would be MUCH simpler if we purchased it all (so much more rest!) but this gave us an easy way to minimize waste since we bake-as-we-go.
Working with our Green Business Associate
Our Green Business Associate at the San Francisco Environment Department has given us a robust list of recommendation that we are trying to implement. Things we’ve already gotten to:
- Organic Rice (yes, it means a trip across town to Rainbow but … not all in life is perfect)
- Installed a low-flow pre-rinse nozzle on our kitchen faucet.
- Bathroom and kitchen papers with minimum 30% recycled content
- ECOS soap
- Enzyme drain cleaners
- Confirming salmon from sustainable source
Recommendations we’ve not been able to implement
- Switching to 100% renewable energy option (1.5 – 2% increase in electric bill). We have to find another place to shave those dollars out of the base cost before we can take on more costs right now, since we’re not in the green yet (pun intended!). We’re currently on the 43% renewable energy option provided.
- Switching to 100% reusable (we did invest in a replacement dishwasher so we’re back to offering glassware in-house, workflow for cutlery in-progress). We will say though, that the electric offset when going back to in-house is noticeable. Our building’s roof is likely too old to go solar.
Coffee Bean Bags
For about a year, we happily used fully compostable (yes, even the seal and valve!) that we sourced from Elevate Packaging in Illinois. We also use their range of clear bags for rusks, when we make those. We now partner with our coffee distributor for compostable bags too, although they don’t offer it on the full range (and sadly, not on the Regenerative Coffee range, which would have been a double win).
Compostable Disposables
Options for compostable disposables are expanding, but it sometimes means we have to order with long lead times. Cups and lids are fairly standard finds now; finding the mini sauce and soup containers are a little more work.
We’d love to switch back to fully reusable materials but our dishwasher broke … and until we can afford a new one (or the extra labor & dry space that comes with hand-washing), we have to make this compromise.
Straws
We know that many paper straws are just not quite – satisfying, but we’ve experimented with every option we could find! Some of the corn alternatives seem nice, but they can also melt a bit.
Gloves
Sustainability, meet your nemesis: restaurant and medical sanitation needs. Our covid protocols have increased our reliance on disposable gloves. With some careful research, we found that pure latex (rubber) gloves are naturally compostable since they’re derived from the rubber plant. Some people tolerate the rubber gloves well, others may have a reaction (although, some react to the non-compostables too). We offer our staff latex gloves as a first choice, but we’ll accommodate other types if that’s what they need.
Ingredients
Where we can, we look for glass or paper packaging or we buy larger quantities (for example, Reeses Pieces for cookies) that we can then store. It’s not perfect, and we’re not in a position to toss money around wildly, so we make careful trade-offs where needed.
Flyers & Printing
We’ve found a nice seed paper that we’ve used for some neighborhood notices. We avoid flyers or photos with plastic coatings. Let us know if you’ve found a great (printable, affordable) local alternative! There’s a lot of innovation in this area. Still hunting for a comparable alternative for the monthly flyer photos, ito both cost and last-minute production speed (the calendar always see last-minute changes!).
Gift Cards
Why don’t we offer handy gift cards at the checkout counter? Because we’ve not found a plastic-free one yet! We do sell virtual gift cards on our website, and have an idea to print some ourselves but the process is time-consuming and a little hacky… Please ask Square when they’ll offer an eco-friendly option!
Merchandise
We obviously prefer non-plastic merchandise. Sometimes, an artist will share their cards wrapped in plastic and we’ll look the other way, but please know that we strongly prefer any consignment goods or merchandise to be plastic-free. (Be creative! Can you protect them in a different, compostable pouch, even if it’s a little makeshift?)
Sorting for recycling
Invariably, mistakes will be made when people sort their own recycling and compostables. That means somebody at the cafe does a check at the end of the day, dons one of those pairs of gloves … and works through the mess to correct the issue. Sort carefully, peeps!
Do you have suggestions?
We’re always open to helpful suggestions! Every choice is a careful balance of cost, storage space (we’re a tiny cafe with almost no extra nooks to hide say, bulk items), labor, quality, reliability and feasibility. With so little cafe space, every item and ingredient must do double-duty. But when we can make something work, we do!