I really enjoyed reading that article. I experience how much waste goes on in restaurants first hand. It gets pretty carried away. When I grew up my parents are stressed the importance of conserving things and making sure to recycle what was possible. At times it seems the principles in a restaurant are the exact opposite of that.
A lot of food gets wasted, there is no doubt about that, but I think paper needs to be reduced a lot as well.
Food can get wasted many ways. A server can ring in the wrong thing and usually the food is basically unusable after that. Also restaurants portions can be generously described as excessive. A lot of food that gets put in front of guests is pretty much impossible for one person to eat. At Red Lobster guests get salads and biscuits before their meal. I usually never pick up empty salad plates. Usually someone either doesn't eat all of their salad or else they leave the onion, cucumber, and/or tomatoes that come with the salad. Another main waste as far as food is concerned is the sides that Red Lobster provides along side the entrée. Examples of a side would be mashed potato, baked potato, french fries, rice pilaf, or broccoli. Usually a guest gets so full from eating the salad biscuits and their main dish that these sides get ignored. It would be interesting to see what impact composing food would have.
I believe that paper gets wasted more than food at Red Lobster. Everything that is done is pretty much written down. Obviously servers write down orders but paper is also used for many different things. Managers are constantly using paper to assign tables to servers or post messages. Schedules are always printed out and posted. Sales numbers and guests compliments are getting posted on paper. Receipts can be wasted a lot as well. Just a credit card payment alone the guest gets three copies of the receipt. Many mistakes can be made which requires receipts to get reprinted. Hosts are always using paper to write down what tables to be sat and what tables are full.
Some of these things I think would be hard to eliminate the use of paper. Going more electronic things would certainly help out but the main thing that should be done is recycling. Anything that is written on or else has paper involved should be recycled. Currently there is no paper recycling going on. The only thing that gets recycled is cardboard boxes. I am just giving an example of one restaurant in Cedar Rapids, IA. Thinking about the restaurants worldwide is kind of sickening thinking about all the waste.
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