1. Consider all your purchases—in your profession and personal life
The environmentally responsible plate model depicts environmentally sound raw material choices utilizing the traditional plate model.
Remember to pay attention to the following issues before purchasing decisions:
- Is the product produced nearby?
- Do you know the origin of the product?
- Is the product made from renewable raw materials?
- Are the vegetables and seasonal products also taken into account?
- Are there less packaging material used?
- Is the product long lasting, durable, multi-usable, safe, easy to repair and maintained or updated?
- Does the product use energy-efficient technology?
2. Sort out the waste properly
When the waste sorting and the recycling works properly, only a small amount of the waste ends up in the landfill. This will save natural resources, because the waste can be reused as raw materials and/or utilized as a source for energy.
Do you remember where you sort bones or plastic canisters?
Pre-treatment of waste
- Rinse all the beverage cartons
- Rinse all the glass bottles, food cans and other containers.
- Fold down all the packages, before disposing them, allowing more room for packages.
- Vegetable and animals fats and oils are packaged into empty containers and placed into an appropriate container at the waste room.
- Drain all the liquid separately from the biowaste.
- Remember to leave the caps on the returnable bottles.
3. Sort bio-waste properly
The proper sorting and the reduction of the bio-waste in the kitchen produces less global greenhouse gas, methane. Properly sorted bio-waste can be composted and used at the gardens and fields.
Edible food waste: Food waste that was originally edible before disposing them. Will end up as waste.
Inedible food waste: The components of food which had not been initially meant for eating, such as certain peels of fruits and vegetables, bones and skin, coffee grounds.
Bio-waste is weighed daily at Restaurant Perho as well as at the cafeteria Herkku. The common aim is to reduce the amount of edible food waste!
Composting is a natural method of micro-organisms (bacteria, fungi and mushrooms) to decay any organic matter in aerobic conditions. Carbon dioxide, water vapor and nutritional humus is created during the composting, that can be used in horticulture.
Did you know…? Roughly one third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year — approximately 1.3 billion tonnes — gets lost or wasted!! Did you know that every 20th grocery bag is thrown away into trash in Finland?
Further information can be found in an article about food waste in a webpage by United Nations.
4. Save energy and water
Remember to turn off the lights if you don’t need them. Turn off the machines when you don’t use them (computers, oven, television etc.) Increased use of technology has at the same time increased the use of energy. Efficient energy use and the reduction of the energy use are environmentally friendly acts.
WWF—Earth Hour: http://www.earthhour.org/
5. Save water
Use water efficiently and do not run water unnecessarily. Close the valves after each use. By calculating your water footprint, you can find out how much your lifestyle consumes the world’s water resources.
Many everyday products contain so-called ’virtual water’.Virtual water could have been consumed in countries where water is already scarce. For example, a cup of coffee contains about 140 liters of virtual water; in addition to the water used to make the cup of coffee.
Water footprints
- The green water footprint: The green water footprint refers to consumption of green water resources (rainwater stored in the soil as soil moisture) to produce the goods and services.
- The blue water footprint: The blue water footprint refers to consumption of blue water resources (surface and groundwater) to produce the goods and services.
- The grey water footprint: The green water footprint refers to pollution and is defined as the volume of freshwater that is required to assimilate the load of pollutants given natural background concentrations .
Further information:
http://www.waterfootprint.org
6. Pleasant environment for everyone
Everyone’s’ personality adds richness to our community. We shall respect and value each member of our community; at school, at work, at a place of hobby—everywhere. According to sustainable principles, everyone has the right to equal well-being.
Let’s take care of our surroundings! When you borrow and use any tools or equipment, remember to return them washed and cleaned back to their original storage place. Report multi-functioning of equipment or tools to your teacher or maintenance worker.
Perho Culinary, Tourism & Business College is completely a smoke-free environment (1976/693 10§, 11§, 12§) Smoking and the use of chewing tobacco is forbidden inside the school building as well as around the school yard. Tobacco products are forbidden for anyone under 18-years old.
Sustainable Development Guide 2019 - 2020Perho Culinary, Tourism & Business College1.8.2019