During the last MOAC (Mother of all cafes) event, great ideas and visions regarding Cafés and the way we could minimise waste, recycle, compost and use energy emerged :

Minimise waste and recycle

• Reduce waste. Tell people about it.
• Be transparent about waste, water and energy reduction against targets i.e. be visible in order to educate customers and seek help where needed
• Setting up informal arrangements to manage waste e.g. coffee grinds to local gardeners or recycling packaging to local schools to use for drawing paper.
• Recycling of waste
• Gray water systems
• I need to get the most out of a few square metres... there is no room for sorting, extra bins... I need the garbage to be sorted elsewhere to help me being sustainable. I want to run a transfer station!.
• Advanced technology that turn off appliances but they get hot fast to serve customers in a rush

Composting

• Compost organics, especially coffee grounds
• Recycling coffee beans/waste. Maybe a co-op or something connected/coordinated, because it's so heavy and expensive to organise transport and removal of an individual's cafe's coffee dregs (beans/waste). For eg. one cafe has a compost and maybe they could compost other cafe's waste.
• Thinking about ways waste can be reused - deep fryer oil to fuel cars, food scraps to make compost
• Use husks and grounds back to farms; put back into farms; use those trucks leaving the markets to take waste back to the farms
• Coordinating compost at a community level i.e. donate grounds to community gardens and they give something for that etc. etc. The closed loop system. Or even "green points" to be redeemed! Compost garbage man.
• Sell organic compost to the customers ...

Overcoming disposable cups waste

• The number of paper cups the cafes go through would be reduced with initiatives that allow people to use their own cups
• Where are the reusable cups that fit. (There is now one made here in NSW). (But why are people drinking coffee on the run… this is my business but stupid!)
• Bring your own cup, or not using takeaway cups
• Customers bring their own cups. Incentives for not using disposable cups.
• A new model for take away; compostable cups, reusable cups; financial incentives to bring your own containers
• Compostable take away cups

Starting by using recycled products to build the cafe

• To lead by example: recycling, be careful how cafes are built, use recyclable products
• Using pre-loved objects, recycled furniture, recycled materials.

Energy

• Self producing cafes i.e. what could we produce ourselves, could we produce our own energy, could we recycle our own waste? What can we do onsite that contributes to sustainability and recycling - real innovation though.
• Solar panels on the roof, obvious external sign of sustainability consciousness

What do you think? How do we go about making it happen?