Counter service explores earth-friendly tableware

Nation's Restaurant News, Nov 23, 1992 by Carolyn Walkup

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. - Some day in the near future, guests at Magic Kingdom counter-service restaurants may be able to discard their disposable tableware and food scraps with the knowledge that they have not contributed to the world's solid-waste crisis.

Currently, all counter-service outlets use colored coated paper plates and cups unprinted with Mickey Mouse figures and piles of paper napkins. The tableware is attractive and serviceable, but it is not degradable, recyclable or reusable.

"We have been looking into paper vs. plastic and trying to assess things," says Robert Colburn, who is general manager of the Food Processing Center and is spearheading research into recycling and other earth-friendly areas.

Disney chemists are looking at various degradable foodservice containers that dissolve in water after a few hours. "There is one that is allegedly degradable and another one that has a cornstarch base," Colburn notes.

If an acceptable container material is found, Colburn says, it "would revolutionize everything." No separation of disposables would be required, because all of it would be degradable.

Disney already composts whatever food scraps it can instead of putting them down the garbage disposals. "We have shut down all garbage disposals. That takes a lot of waste out of the water. "Colburn notes. Kitchen scraps, such as meet and produce trimmings, are being sold for pig feed.

Source reduction is another environmental area that Disney is investigating. All of those paper napkins, for instance, contain 25 percent less paper than they used to, and few people can tell the difference.

Purchasing personnel continue to seek ways of buying products that use less packaging. Molasses for baked beans now is purchased in 55-gallon drums instead of 1-gallon cans, as one example.

The Food Processing Center is recycling 57 percent of its trash and expects to increase that percentage, Colburn says. Recyclables, such as glass, metal, some plastics, cardboard and office paper, are sent to Disney's 30,000-square-foot Materials Recovery-Facility, where they are separated and readied for vendors.

From the inception of Disney's Florida recycling efforts in 1990 through August 1991 Disney World had retrieved 4,400 tons of cardboard and mixed paper, 46 tons of beverage cans, 100 tons of glass and millions of polystyrene foam cups that have been recycled into flower pots and building insulation.

Excess prepared food does not go to waste but is sent to the Orlando branch of the Second Harvest Food Bank to be delivered to food pantries.