Whole Foods teams with Waste Management to compost 80 percent of store wastes
Whole Foods Market has launched a composting program, which captures food and packaging wastes, in seven of its Chicago-area stores, converting 80 percent of its wastes into soil material for use in landscaping.
Implemented at the Schaumburg and Sauganash, Chicago, locations in February 2011, the program has expanded to other Illinois stores. Participating stores include Schaumburg, Sauganash and Lincoln Park in Chicago, Deerfield, Naperville, Palatine, and Northbrook. These stores have recovered and repurposed more than 1,600 tons of food wastes, meaning that about 10 percent of wastes are disposed of in landfills. By contrast, those pioneering stores used to divert only about 10 percent of their wastes.
“Prior to composting, everything went into the trash because the store couldn't recycle it,” said Kaili Harding, marketing manager of Whole Foods Market Schaumburg. “It was a learning process. Now we use only a small little bin for our landfill waste, and what used to be a large garbage compactor is now our compost compactor.”
Schaumburg Team Members first broached the idea of composting in 2010, but were unable to implement a program because sites were not available in the area to accept food wastes. At the time, compost sites processed yard wastes only. As interest grew from grocers and restaurateurs, Illinois approved legislation that year that allowed yard waste composting facilities to apply for permits to accept food wastes. With permitted sites available in 2011, Whole Foods Market immediately launched its program.
“Whole Foods Market is completely revolutionizing the way it handles its food waste,” said Ella Plahm, Waste Management account manager. “In working with the Whole Food Market's team, we are helping them achieve their environmental and community objectives. As a company, Waste Management is committed to extracting the value from organic materials to develop new products.”
The stores capture out-of-date food from each of the departments, as well as from its administrative and customer service areas, and place it into a compost container located at the rear of the store. Waste Management collects the container and takes it to a site in Romeoville, IL, where it is mixed with yard wastes and, over a six-month period, converted into compost for use in landscaping.
“Nothing goes to waste, if it can be helped,” Harding said. Whole Foods Market takes pride in its contributions to local food pantries and has continued longstanding daily pickups from food pantries, “but if the food is no longer fit for human consumption, it goes to the composter,” Harding said.
Each store department is equipped with green, blue and black containers. The green one, for food wastes going to compost, is the largest. The blue container is for recyclables, which are collected and transported to the Whole Foods Market distribution center in Munster, Indiana. In turn, they are shipped to a recycling processor. The black container, the smallest of the three, is for material to be disposed in a landfill.
Every Team Member tends to the team's green mission of “caring for our community and environment,” Harding said. For the store's approximately 100 team members, environmental training is mandatory. In fact, each department has a green representative responsible for ensuring that food wastes are conveyed to the proper depository at the rear of the stores.
The education program also extends to customers, including signage in the store café about composting, recycling and instructions on the correct bins to place their items. In addition, maintenance Team Members go through café containers to collect more materials for composting and recycling.
In addition to the Schaumburg location at 750 Martingale Road, participating stores include two Chicago locations at 6020 N. Cicero, Ave. and 1550 N. Kingsbury St.; 760 Waukegan Road, Deerfield; 2607 75th St., Naperville; 840 Willow Road, Northbrook; and 1331 N. Rand Road, Palatine.