At La Vita Dolce, we believe in maximizing value for all of our stakeholders. Stakeholders include employees, customers, the community, owners, vendors, and the environment. The environment is the only stakeholder without a voice — so it’s our job to speak for it by considering the environmental impact of the decisions we make.
One step we took in improving our environmental impact was beginning to compost. We started by composting coffee grounds by donating them to the Scroggs Elementary School garden. Later, we worked with Orange County Waste Management to create a compost pick up station at the cafe, and have now been composting all coffee grounds, food waste, and other materials for well over a year. Others have even started taking advantage of the new compost pick up station!
And now it’s time to add more value to our silent stakeholder. While we’ve been using recyclable cups, we’ve learned that since they are often dirty, they can’t always be recycled. And theoretically recyclable materials also don’t end up being recycled in our area depending on a host of ever-changing variables such as oil prices. So composting is the better option to ensure that most of our waste has minimal environmental impact.
Beginning this week, we are switching to all compostable hot cups, cold cups, lids, sleeves and straws. This means that the vast majority of our waste is either recyclable (not just in theory, but in practice) or compostable. In addition, we’ve chosen to use Eco Product cups, lids, and straws, which are made from renewable plant materials.
A big shout out to those who helped us take this next step:
- Our staff, who continually consider environmental impact and push us to improve
- Orange County Solid Waste who collects our compost and has worked with us to educate management and staff (special thanks to Blair Pollack)
- CompostNow, our local vendor of compostable materials and a company dedicated to using renewable, high quality products and educating others on environmental impact and options available.
We love our new cups! With the help of CompostNow, we found ones that aren’t just compostable and made from renewable plant material, but are also high quality and stand up to heat. Come by and see for yourself!
Note that compostable materials are more expensive and while we absorbed some of the additional cost, some of our prices increased slightly when we made this transition. We strive to keep prices low and haven’t had an overall price increase in 4 years since we opened. We will continue to look for ways to reduce cost while maintaining quality, and pass savings along to customers.
And finally, if you’re ever looking for coffee grounds for your garden, let us know and we’ll set some aside for you!