UnityPoint Health – Meriter announced Thursday that its composting initiative with a local waste removal and recycling company has prevented more than one ton of food scraps from entering local landfills.
The initiative, which was launched five weeks ago with Sun Prairie-based Green Box Compost, focuses on saving food items whenever safety standards allow it, donating extra food to a local food pantry and composting the remaining food waste.
Michelle Miller, director of nutrition and hospitality for Meriter, said the program, one of several eco-friendly programs within Meriter’s food services, has quickly progressed to the one ton (2,000 pound) mark.
“Our Food and Nutrition team is always looking for innovative ways to make our hospital kitchen more sustainable,” Miller said. “Seeing this project divert 940 pounds of waste in its earliest weeks and quickly cross the one-ton mark is a massive success.”
Meriter also has moved away from single-use plastics with metal utensils replacing plastic straws, and its kitchen staff has built a herb garden to source local food ingredients.
