by Gabriella Dee

Figuring out the Plan.

This past winter, I was contacted by Emma Barken, Executive Director of the Memorial Centre Farmers Market. Emma wanted to reduce waste at the market.  We devised the idea to use real dishes and silverware, which the market would purchase and distribute weekly to participating vendors.  Emma emailed all vendors who sold prepared foods to determine interest, and the response was resoundingly positive.  Vendors provided supply lists (quantity/types of bowls, plates, silverware). Emma asked for donations, and we went thrifting.  Once we had our inventory and a place to wash the dishes every week (Next Church), it was time to start the initiative.  

 On Market Day

On Sunday morning, I get to the market at 8, organize the dishes into labelled plastic totes according to vendor needs, and distribute the totes to the vendors.  During market hours, I help patrons sort any waste they may have and collect all the dirty dishes and silverware.  I put food waste into a green bin, spray water on all the dishes and put them into empty totes.  At the end of the market, I go around to all the vendors and collect all the remaining dishes (some dirty, some clean - we realized that we needed a LOT of totes to separate all the dishes and move them around this way).  Any clean dishes in clean totes are put back into our storage area.  All dirty dishes in now dirty totes are packed into my car and driven to Next Church for washing and sanitizing with the help of another volunteer.  Clean dishes are stacked into now-clean totes and driven back to the storage area in the barn.  

Waste Reduction

Eight vendors serve prepared foods who are part of our initiative.  On any given Sunday, we fill 5-7 totes full of dirty dishes (about 50-100 plates, ten bowls, 80+ cups, and 60 pieces of silverware).  Most vendors would have used paperboard-type containers to serve their food and wooden/bamboo utensils, which could have been composted.  Our reusable initiative eliminates the need to produce, manufacture, and ship single-use plates/bowls/cutlery and reduces waste, so there is no need to transport compostables to Joyceville, landfill plastic cutlery and styrofoam containers hundreds of kilometres away, or send recyclables first to KARC to be sorted and baled, and then to distant locations to be recycled into products that eventually become landfill waste.  Granted, we are using water and energy to wash the dishes, but we are reducing our weekly environmental footprint.

Gabriella Dee is a Memorial Centre Farmers market volunteer completing a Masters of Environmental Science degree at Queen’s University. She has been active in numerous waste reduction efforts throughout Kingston.