Below is a true story of one of our Green Restaurant Association Sustainability Consultant's recent work with a university who thought it was using compostable products, but their distributor was selling them products that were not compostable.
"I had a university client who thought they were purchasing compostable cutlery from their distributor. I reached out to their vendor to verify the product's environmental claims, and I learned that the cutlery was only 52% biobased - making them ineligible for commercial composting.
When I reached out to the distributor, my contact there was very surprised to learn that these cutlery pieces were not truly compostable; she had originally put in lots of good research and thought that they had bought and were selling truly compostable cutlery.
With our extensive knowledge and know-how, we were able to help the distributor then present multiple new truly green options to the university, and they were able to get the compostable products that fit their budget. This will not only benefit our client but all the other clients of that vendor."