• Cafe Giulia uses coolseat to avoid over 2,000 kg of carbon pollution in first week. Graph by Perry Shields.
By Michael Mobbs
In its first week of installing a coolseat, Café Giulia in Chippendale, Sydney, composted 327.8kg of food waste, preventing 2,514 of CO2 emissions had the food been sent to landfill to decompose over decades.
• coolseat outside Cafe Guilia, Chippendale, NSW - no smells, a seat, some food growing, too
• “Wow, our 2 coolseats have become such talking points at the café. Customers just love them and are so interested in how it works to save CO2 emissions by turning our food waste into rich odourless compost. I want to thank Michael and John at coolseats for supporting local business, particularly in these uncertain times.” Stefan, the owner, at Café Giulia
Through our Love Food Hate Waste Innovation Partnership with the NSW EPA, we are working on a trial to end café food waste in the state.
The coolseat at Café Giulia, which is one of the seats installed as part of the project, will help us to obtain data on how coolseats can reduce food waste going to landfill.
As coolseats are designed to have a 20+ year life the, cost and legacy pollution savings they achieve are also being analysed as part of the program. Data from the project is key, as it will be used to inform future strategies and solutions to ending both café and household food waste.
• Michael and John installing Café Giulia’s coolseat
For the project creators, Michael Mobbs in Sydney and John Fry in Bathurst, the goals go beyond ending café food waste.
“John and I are keeping local money in local communities and helping to cool streets thereby increasing tree and plant canopy using the compost made by coolseats. And we’re keen to support schools, cafes and households who wish to grow and harvest food from coolseats which are microfarms because they’re planted out with edible plants and plants which support small birds.
We use only Australian made materials, recycled timber and plastic and local trades and labour. (Currently waste industries mostly take money out of local communities and concentrate it in a few hands.)
Of human ‘waste’ I say this to myself over and over again as I look at garbage collections, packaging and stuff - and may I invite you to join me in saying it, too – ‘There’s no such thing as waste, just a failure of imagination.”
If you would like to be kept in the loop on the coolseats program, become a subscriber and share this link will friends and family.
You can follow other Love Food Hate Waste NSW projects through the following links:
· Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lovefoodhatewastensw/
· Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LoveFoodHateWasteNSW
· Internet: https://www.lovefoodhatewaste.nsw.gov.au/
And you’re welcome to use these hashtags which include other participating cafes - and it’s on Tik Tok, thanks to Benny Davis, here (he’s also made a PG version there).
#coolseats
#churchblockcafe
#nilestreetcafe
#anythinggrows
#cafeguilia
#m_mobbs
• TicTok
• Internet
This project is a NSW Environment Protection Authority Waste Less Recycle More initiative funded from the waste levy