Garbage is inevitable in the restaurant and bar business. Kitchen employees toss onion skins and meat fat into the wastebasket almost instinctively. Once-used plastic wrap and slips guarding the linens find their way into black bags for trash-day pickup. Plastic bags are ordered by the bundle and then often discarded after customers use them to take leftovers home. At the Brooklyn natural wine bar and restaurant Rhodora, however, taking out the trash works a little differently. The new eatery is one of a handful of establishments in various cities that have begun to operate under a zero-waste ethos, meaning they do not send any trash or food waste that enters their business to a landfill. There is not even a traditional trash can on the premises. The aim is to lessen the restaurants’ environmental impact while running a profitable venture — with a possible added benefit of solidifying their eco-conscious bona fides among discerning clientele. Such radical idealism comes with challenges, including finding producers and distributors who can accommodate requests like compostable packaging and figuring out how to recycle broken appliances.  

“We’re in the business of serving people,” said Henry Rich, a co-owner of Rhodora. “And it feels incongruent to take care of somebody for an evening and try to show them a great time, and then externalize the waste and carbon footprint of that evening onto people.”

Much of the planning time was spent searching for distributors and producers who could adhere to Rhodora’s mission. One cheesemaker offered to remove the plastic wrapping before delivery — and then throw it in the garbage.

A handful of companies were able to accommodate the unorthodox restrictions, including She Wolf Bakery and its sister butcher shop, Marlow & Daughters, which deliver reusable plastic bins full of fresh-baked breads and jars of pickled vegetables and eggs via Cargo Bike Collective riders. Another company, A Priori Distribution, switched to using compostable packaging and paper tape when dropping off aluminum tins of fish.

“It certainly is unique, and that is new for us,” said Caroline Fidanza, culinary director of the Marlow Collective, which includes She Wolf and Marlow & Daughters. “There’s a certain amount of that that’s very doable. It’s harder to package things than to not package them on some level.”

Alongside limiting the amount of spoilable inventory Rhodora orders, Mr. Rich said, the bar eliminated any sort of chef position, partly to avoid creating “a top-down kind of vibe, where there were things being considered other than being zero waste.”

“Having a small staff playing a central role, we can be more nimble than a normal restaurant,” Ms. Chambers said.

The paper menus, which feature a mini-essay on the restaurant’s green mission, are fed to the compost pile when they become outdated or tattered. Anything left on customers’ plates is dumped into collection bins in the kitchen, which are fed into the commercial-grade composter tucked inside hutches adjacent to the bar. (Rhodora does not serve meat, which is more difficult to compost, although its composter does process any fish that is left over.)

Natural wine bottles and most other non-compostable containers are removed for recycling via Royal Waste Services, which the restaurant said also accepted broken glass. Corks are donated to ReCork, a recycling program that repurposes the material for shoe soles and yoga blocks.

But many establishments operate on slim profit margins, and it’s not always immediately obvious how programs to reduce food waste can translate into financial gains, said Angel Veza, director of the Hospitality Advisory at First Principle Group, a global advisory firm. Many chefs and restaurant owners see little incentive in pursuing more environmentally friendly ways to order ingredients, much less pay an extra $800 as Rhodora does for a bin from TerraCycle. The company turns hard-to-recycle trash left behind by customers, like gum or plastic wrapping, into new goods. (Rhodora has a second bin placed in the bathroom for used hygiene products.)

“If they’re thriving, making money, they don’t have a reason to change,” said Ms. Veza. “Restaurants close all the time, too, so the last thing they’re going to think about is, ‘Am I going to use single-use plastic?’”

Though Rhodora is striving to ensure its space is zero waste, the system isn’t perfect. It hasn’t been determined, for example, what the landfill-eschewing answer is to disposing of a dishwasher beyond repair.

“I don’t want to pretend we have everything figured out,” Mr. Rich said.

“We’re at one pivot point,” Mr. Rich said. “The hope is that maybe we can influence and inspire some people above and below to learn what zero waste is, because it’s so beautifully simple not having a trash and not sending it to the landfill.”

“Through this free recycling program, Gerber is offering parents an easy way to divert waste from landfills by providing a responsible way to dispose of certain hard-to-recycle baby food packaging,” said TerraCycle chief executive officer and founder, Tom Szaky. “By collecting and recycling these items, families can demonstrate their respect for the environment not only through the products that they choose for their children, but also with how they dispose of the packaging.”   As an added incentive, for every pound of packaging waste sent to TerraCycle through the Gerber Recycling Program, collectors can earn $1 to donate to a non-profit, school or charitable organization of their choice. Gerber believes the baby food industry should help create a world where babies thrive, and this partnership is one of many steps toward its goal to achieve 100 percent recyclable or reusable packaging by 2025. The Gerber Recycling Program is open to any interested individual, school, office, or community organization. Participation in the program is easy. Interested parties can sign up on the Gerber Recycling Program webpage and mail in packaging that is not municipally recyclable using a prepaid shipping label. Once collected, the packaging is cleaned and melted into hard plastic that can be remolded to make new recycled products. Participation in the program is easy interested parties can sign up on the Gerber Recycling Program page at https://www.terracycle.com/en-US/brigades/gerber.

Tide laundry soap eco box is less waste than the plastic bottles.

What’s the most commonly found piece of litter on the side of Pennsylvania highways?

It’s not soda cans. It’s not scrap paper.

It’s cigarette butts, according to the Pennsylvania Litter Research Study. The study was compiled earlier this year.

The City of Easton is trying to do its part to reverse this trend. The Easton Ambassadors have collected more than half a million cigarette butts from recycling receptacles placed around the city starting in 2015.

“We’re just making it really convenient for smokers to throw out their cigarette butts. I don’t think they want to litter. It’s just that they have no place to put them,” said Sandra Zajacek, the operations manager for the Easton Ambassadors. The red-coated ambassador crews pick up litter, maintain planters, give directions to out-of-towners and do what they can to make the city hospitable.

The cigarette butt collection program started modestly with four receptacles. Now there are more than 20 across the Downtown.

Zajacek is thrilled to report the city received a grant for hundreds more cigarette recycling receptacles courtesy of Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful.

Her organization will slowly deploy the pole-mounted containers in the city’s Downtown and West Ward neighborhoods. Zajacek wants to collect as many butts as she can but doesn’t want to overwhelm her staff by having to empty hundreds of new boxes at the same time.

The new containers will replace stand-alone street-level containers put out in 2008. Those containers sometimes blow over. Sometimes people stuff trash into them. That’s not as big a problem with the small pole-mounted containers.

The trash study found 96 million butts along Pennsylvania roads in 2019.

And butts are the most commonly-found litter in the ocean, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

“All these cigarette butts go into the street when people flick them. Then it rains and all they go out into the Delaware and the Lehigh and the Bushill Creek,” Zajacek said. “That’s just really bad for the environment.”

The butts collected by the Easton Ambassdors go to TerraCycle, which converts them into shipping pallets and park benches.

Zajacek has long been an advocate for the environment. She admits she smoked as a teen but she mitigated the damage to herself by zealously advocating for the proper disposal of butts. She made a friend pull over her car after the friend carelessly flicked a butt out the window. When the friend picked up a littered butt, the trip resumed.

Zajacek said it’s rewarding “to have a real program and do something I already have a passion about.”

Going green got real. At Aldo Shoes, 2019 was the culmination of a five-year sustainability initiative, a journey that included a 46-per-cent decrease in CO2 emissions and phasing out single-use shopping bags in favour of smart shoeboxes. “Climate emergency” is the Oxford English Dictionary Word of the Year, and in the world of fashion and beauty, a growing awareness of the industry’s impact on the planet kickstarted a push to make style more sustainable. Many brands, big and small, are taking action to become more environmentally friendly and ethical, thanks to customer demand. One standout step forward in 2019 was a shift in how consumers look at the resale market, which reportedly grew 21 times faster than traditional retail, according to retail analytics firm Global Data. Calgary-based online luxury reseller the Upside is expecting to do $2.4-million in sales this year, while Quebec retailer Simons introduced vintage clothing to its offerings. When it comes to the production of new apparel and cosmetics, brands continued to develop innovative sources of raw materials and packaging with minimal environmental impact. Frank and Oak introduced a sustainable outerwear collection made from recycled plastic, while beauty brands such as Clarins and Burt’s Bees made it their mission to ensure that their packaging was properly recycled, through new initiatives such as a partnership with TerraCycle, a company that comes up with green solutions for hard-to-recycle products. At Aldo Shoes, 2019 was the culmination of a five-year sustainability initiative, a journey that included a 46-per-cent decrease in CO2 emissions and phasing out single-use shopping bags in favour of smart shoeboxes. CEO David Bensadoun, whose father founded the Montreal-based company in 1972, describes the past year as a positive step forward, but promises there’s more work to do. “It showed us what we can do and where we’re headed,” he says. “The goal is to continue to innovate, to improve, to challenge our way of working as an organization and others in the industry to be better, to be at the forefront of actual change.” Shopping went gourmet A big shift in shopping habits saw the grocery store become the retail destination of the year and that’s because the modern-day supermarket is anything but banal. The elevated grocery shopping experience kicked off in January, when McEwan’s Yonge Bloor opened its 17,000-square-foot subterranean spot in downtown Toronto. The thoughtfully stocked aisles of ingredients and pantry staples are surrounded by prepared food options including a Fabbrica Pizza counter, a sushi bar and a carving station. In November – and one block west – that was followed up by the highly anticipated opening of Canada’s first Eataly outpost, a three-storey temple to Italian cuisine. That month also saw the Time Out Montreal Market opening the doors to its 40,000-square-foot emporium in the Centre Eaton de Montreal on St. Catherine Street. It features food from 16 of the city’s top chefs including James Beard Award winner Normand Laprise of Toqué, a beverage program to complement the dining options, culinary lessons and a retail space. According to TV food and lifestyle expert and writer Pay Chen, a key factor in the rise of the curated grocery store may be too much choice at the local supermarket. “I think people like to feel like someone has done the work of sifting through the options and choosing the best or most relevant or interesting items,” she says. Chen points out that these curated stores typically come with a staff that’s knowledgeable and approachable, comparing their role to that of a sommelier. “The expertise available makes the experience more enjoyable.” At malls and in shopping districts across Canada this year, we’ve seen e-commerce leaders like Endy launching and expanding their storefront presence. It wasn’t so long ago that e-commerce threatened to wipe out traditional retail, with casualties that included some legacy brands such as Sears. Despite some high-profile bankruptcies in 2019, including Forever 21 and Barneys New York, this year, it became increasingly apparent that the in-person shopping experience isn’t likely to vanish any time soon. In fact, it’s become a key strategy for digital natives, the term used to describe companies that were born online. A report by the International Council of Shopping Centers revealed that opening a physical retail space results in a 37 per cent average increase in web traffic. This positive relationship between bricks and clicks is dubbed the “halo effect” and it illustrates the fact that we aren’t strictly online shoppers or in-store shoppers, but a hybrid of both, with the path to purchase becoming increasingly nuanced. Story continues below advertisement Aly Damji, the executive vice-president of investments and asset management at real-estate investment and development firm Hullmark, says it’s a phenomenon he’s witnessed at their properties firsthand. He points to Toronto meal-prep and food delivery service Fresh City Farms as an example of the “omnichannel” approach. “They were online and had a loyal following of their food delivery meal prep kits. Now, they have kits available in store, but then also built a traditional grocery business.” At malls and in shopping districts across Canada this year, we’ve seen e-commerce leaders including Endy, Knix and Bon Look launching and expanding their storefront presence. Brand Canada capitalized on its cachet Canadian cottage staple Roots opened up its first experiential store on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile. With the NBA trophy awarded north of the border for the first time ever, all eyes are on Canada. And it’s no longer just for our maple syrup, as high-profile figures including the Duchess of Sussex and Hailey Bieber continue to sport Canadian fashion labels such as Nonie, Aritzia, Sentaler and Ecksand on the world stage. “The perception of Canadian brands on the international scene has changed a lot,” says Natasha Koifman, president and founder of NKPR, a public relations firm with offices in Toronto and New York. “The overall increased global spotlight on our country, as well as our strong identity and values of integrity and inclusiveness have contributed to the increased interest in brands that are created in Canada.” According to a survey by Price Waterhouse Cooper this year, 96 per cent of international respondents had a positive view of Canada, with 88 per cent of millennial respondents saying they have a strong interest in Canada. Riding the wave are a handful of Canadian retailers that continued to expand globally this year. Canadian cottage staple Roots opened up its first experiential store on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile. Parka brand Moose Knuckles and CAFA 2018 women’s-wear designer of the year Marie Saint Pierre both opened stores in Manhattan. And jewellery brand Mejuri followed up its New York store with one in Los Angeles. Of course, no one champions Canada quite like Drake, who marked a major milestone this year when he expanded his empire all the way to Japan with the opening of an impressive OVO flagship store in Tokyo. Consumers recognized their power to affect change With industry watchdogs such as Instagram’s Diet Prada and Estée Laundry drawing attention to the fashion and beauty industry’s many instances of cultural appropriation, racism, gender discrimination, workplace bullying and egregious environmental waste, these stories became mainstream news with bottom-line consequences. Following popular backlash, Dior pulled the videos from its Sauvage fragrance campaign, which featured Native American imagery; Elle Germany formally apologized for its “Black is Back” story about models of colour; and Gucci’s Alessandro Michele wrote an apology letter for a turtleneck design resembling black face. Loewe removed an outfit from its shelves that resembled a concentration camp uniform, while Kim Kardashian renamed her “Kimono” shapewear line “Skims.” Sage Paul, a fashion designer and the founder of Indigenous Fashion Week Toronto, cites the recent cancellation of the Victoria’s Secret fashion show as an example of consumer action leading to industry evolution. “Speaking up and consciously choosing what we consume does have an impact,” she says, adding that social media has opened up the conversation to be more inclusive. “While I think call-out culture has its problems, I do think it’s important to think critically and be accountable for how our choices impact those around us or perpetuate social issues, like racism. With tact, we can influence positive change by drawing attention to those issues and not contributing to them.” Take the Savage x Fenty Lingerie by Rihanna collection. At the pop star’s fashion show in September, she was applauded for featuring models of all shapes, cultures, orientations, genders and abilities, and the line has become an industry standard for how to build an inclusive brand.