We like to incorporate green living and attitudes into our daily routines across all our restaurants. These steps are simple to implement, and we rest assured knowing we are not consciously contributing to any negative effects on the environment.

Starting with our signature coffee at the Devil’s Isle and our Bunn Crescendo Coffee machines. Our locally roasted coffee under the supervision of our expert roasters leaves a minimal carbon footprint.

We know capsules have disastrous effect for the environment and contribute to an enormous amount of waste, they are also expensive and lack the flavor of an authentic coffee that has been hand roasted and freshly prepared.

Because of Bunn’s corporate responsibility policy (CRP) as an equipment provider and their Respect the Earth sustainability policy, you know the parts that they use in their machines have been ethically sourced. Over a short amount of time, the machines pay for themselves when stacked up against pods and capsules. For certain this reduces plastic waste and lowers costs.

Quit Using Plastic Straws

The Last Plastic Straw is a movement to eliminate single use plastic at the source and a project by the Plastic Pollution Coalition.

According to the Last Straw, ‘Beach cleanups pick up 5,000 plastic straws annually from area beaches’.

You can opt not to use straws, use a recycled paper straw if necessary or if you like drinking from a straw purchase a metal straw and maximize the experience. This is a great choice for children too!

A recent paper by phys.org states some alarming facts, “Straws make up about 4 percent of the plastic trash by piece, but far less by weight. Straws on average weigh so little—about one sixty-seventh of an ounce or .42 grams—that all those billions of straws add up to only about 2,000 tons of the nearly 9 million tons of plastic waste that yearly hits the waters.”

Recycling

In terms of recycling, it may be true that we struggle to find places for our garbage. Previously, China imported much of the worlds waste to recycle but as of January 1st, 2018 placed restrictions on this practice. As part of a broad antipollution campaign, China announced that it no longer wanted to import “foreign garbage” and has banned imports of various types of plastic and paper, and tightened standards for materials it does accept (source: New York Times).

We use recycled burlap bags for our coffee labeled I Know Hope bags, which are handmade in the USA. They are 100% environmentally friendly and the profits go towards food programs around the world. You can purchase a bag from Devil’s Isle, Good to Go Deli.

In Bermuda, much of the islands waste products are pumped into the waters around the island, obviously this has consequential impacts on the environment. We use cleaning products that are biodegradable and have zero to low toxicity for both humans and aquatic life. These Eco-friendly products are made from renewable ingredients without chlorine, known carcinogens or phosphates.

The solution is for us to all pull in together and reduce waste where we can. This could be done by refusing plastic bags at the supermarket and taking your own bag, visiting whole food stores and using glass jars to stock up on basic staples, skipping bottled water altogether, replacing coffee capsules with your own roast, and by composting organic materials these efforts help a great deal to reduce waste.

Read more about marine protection and plastic straws here.