Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Partnership launches zero waste effort
BENTONVILLE — A zero waste initiative at 8th Street Market could become a model for others to use if it proves successful, initiative partners said.
The Market, Brightwater and Food Loops are partnering to decrease the amount of food and product waste produced at the Market in an effort to divert waste from landfills and provide natural fertilizer. The Market has several food-centric vendors in operation and a few more that have yet to open.
“Our goal is to make this something Bentonville is known for,” said Tom Rohr, founder of Food Loops.
Food Loops, which incorporated as a company in November, collects food from commercial businesses, turns it into a natural fertilizer and sells it back into the region.
Brightwater: A Center for the Study of Food is Northwest Arkansas Community
College’s culinary program and is an anchor tenant at the Market, 801 S.E. Eighth St.
“In the end, if we’re able to get the food locally and turn it into fertilizer and compost and sell it locally, then this particular concept would work anywhere you had a combination of population and agriculture around it,” Rohr said.
Food waste is estimated to be between 30 percent and 4o percent of the food supply in the United States, according to the United States Department of Agriculture. The department defines food waste as when an “edible item goes unconsumed, as in food discarded by retailers due to color or appearance and plate waste by consumers.”
Food Loops, based in Rogers, operates in Benton and Washington counties, which see about 80,000 tons of trash in its landfills annually, according to Rohr. About half of that is from commercial food waste. The company has a four-year goal to convert 20 percent of that, which would create about 30 million pounds of fertilizer.
The beginning steps are to work with larger customers, such as 8th Street Market where the initiative began Aug. 20.
“What we’re focused on is developing a four-stream waste system,” Rohr said.
The system will provide color-coded waste bins for recyclable plastic and cardboard, food and compostable waste, glass, and nonrecyclable or compostable waste. Food Loops will collect the glass and the food and compostable waste.
Market tenants are also encouraged to use eco-friendly paper and plastic products that can be composted. Food Loops is a distributor of Eco-Products.
“We’re not requiring everybody, but we’re trying to encourage everybody to use these types of products,” said
Jeff Snyder, managing director of Newmark Moses Tucker Partners.
Newmark was previously Newmark Grubb Arkansas and is on the development team for 8th Street Market.
It’s not possible to know what the total waste reduction will be until the Market is operating at full capacity, Snyder said.
Yet, a mark of success would be for all the tenants to use compostable products and for them and the public to learn and engage with the four-stream waste system, he said.
Waste will be audited and tracked over time to measure how much of it can be recycled or turned into fertilizer, said Mark Holaway, purchasing and facilities manager at Brightwater.
“True zero waste, that’s difficult,” he said. “We’ve got to build a lot of partnerships to move to true zero waste. If we can get to an extremely low waste, I’ll call that successful.” Partnerships would also include produce distributors, Haloway explained. Some packaging materials are wax-coded or unrecyclable plastic, so officials are working with them to figure out how to use reusable crates, he said.
This initiative fits in with Brightwater’s tenant of sustainability.
“We’re trying to provide an example to the culinary industry, not only what a culinary school can do but what the industry can do — from small individual restaurants to larger food production facilities — how this can be done,” Holaway said.
This isn’t the only waste reduction initiative in Northwest Arkansas. Fayetteville City Council adopted a Solid Waste Reduction, Diversion and Recycling Master Plan in Feb. 2017. The plan calls for diverting 40 percent of the city’s waste from the landfill by 2027. It includes adding food waste to its compost program.
A message left for the city’s waste reduction coordinator Friday afternoon wasn’t returned before 4:30 p.m.