Through our search for understanding the process of recycling, we came across this company in Austin that recycles restaurant waste. Pretty awesome concept, 
right?? Especially, when you think about just how much useful material comes out of a restaurant.
Think of it like a cycle… the foods and products come into the restaurant, get consumed or used, then the waste that is left over; boxes, cans, broccoli heads, day-old foods, garnishes, get picked up and used to create more products or even to create produce that come back into the restaurant…
As we are learning, used materials are not used up at all and there is still some life in them!
The company is called Restaurant Recyclers. It is owned and was founded by a guy named Jimmy Mitchell. We got the opportunity to hang out with Jimmy and his business partner, Nathan to see how the whole operation works.
Here is how business rolls…
First, Jimmy makes contact with a client and evaluates the amount of waste that comes out.
Then, Jimmy will assign barrels to the business. He will have barrels for plastic, cardboard, metals, glass, and… oh, here is my favorite part… FOOD!!
Austin has a million restaurants. Well ok, I lie, but I do know that Austin is giving San Fran a run for 1st place as the city with the most restaurants per capita.
With that many restaurants putting out waste, the only smart thing to do is to find ways to reduce that massive output!
Now, what does he do with all of that waste? The cardboard, plastics, glass, and metals go to Ecology Action (we’ll be writing about them later). EA is a local not for profit company that provides recycling drop offs in the city. 
What about the food? The food is taken back to his gardens. He has a few within Austin that he can take the food to, but his main site is a 5-acre garden in Spicewood, Texas.
The food waste is comprised of most foods but never meats or bones and preferably not dairy products, however egg whites and shells are ok. Even coffee grounds are encouraged to wind up in the ‘food’ barrels.
Now, this food’s eventual purpose is as compost for the gardens where Jimmy grows vegetables and fruits for other restaurants to use as produce.
Here’s the decomposition process, a tried and true method of windrows: Jimmy sets the food waste up in rows of mounds, then covers it up with a tarp to start decomposition. I was privileged to get a look at these rows. You can see the different levels the waste goes through. In some mounds I could make out different types
of foods and in other mounds the process was complete and left behind was a uniform brown mulch. What became of the food was this beautiful composition of nutrients that looked like high grade dirt compost bought at a store. Hmm… forget buying fertilizer and dirt for your garden, use your leftovers!
Be surprised, but there was no smell! Now, I only got to see a smaller garden, so it may be possible that the huge lot in Spicewood stinks of rotting vegetables, but then maybe not.
So, that’s it. It’s very simple! The unused foods in restaurants like cabbage hearts, or carrot heads, or discarded limes and lemons, are thrown out into the barrels by an educated staff and are collected, instead of being thrown into landfills. Then, Jimmy takes the waste and uses it to grow more veggies and fruits that eventually come back to your plate.
Jimmy currently works with over 30 businesses and he took us on a typical tour of his daily pick up. Restaurant recycling business is booming and Jimmy is having to upgrade more and more as bars and restaurants jump on the bandwagon to a more green and less wasteful way of running. 
It’s baby steps. No one person or business can absolutely change over night. It is a matter of changing old habits and educating others.
It’s hard for some people to see the benefit of recycling. It’s costly, it’s obtrusive, and the process is pretty vague. So, why recycle? Why, as a business should you even remotely consider coming to the “green side”?
Well, it depends on how much you care about your reputation. Recycling and reusing are practices that are here to stay. It’s not a trend, it’s a new way of living and a new way of thinking and the best thing a business can do to keep its head above the competitive water is to be revolutionary.
Consumers, other companies, and the media, will notice the restaurants efforts and go there before any other consideration. Going green is a collective effort and society is naturally going that way.
Some of the restaurants that are currently part of this change are Opal Divine’s, Green Pastures, The Alamo Drafthouse, The Highball, Vespiao, Guero’s, Fonda San Miguel, and many others. I wish I could list them all but these are the only ones we could make it to that Saturday afternoon.
“From the Earth to the Table and back to the Earth” -Jimmy Mitchell
