The famous Samford Patisserie café (in Samford, near Brisbane) now has two community recycling pickup stations, both of which help the environment.

The cafe’s coffee grounds once went into landfill but are now available for people to pick up and use as compost for their veggie gardens. The other pickup station is for things such as egg cartons and bubble wrap. People can come and take these with no obligation, to use them for whatever they want. What a fantastic idea that adds to the community service component of what the Patisserie does.

As a further contribution to the community, the Patisserie has catered for gatherings of the Samford Sustainable Business Network at the Samford Community Hub.

Below is a list of the Patisserie’s sustainability initiatives, as announced on the Samford Patisserie Facebook page.
In a commercial kitchen, there can be so much waste. Over the years we have been trying to implement ways to reduce our impact on the environment. We have been putting in many different measures and would like to remind our community of what we’re doing, as you may be able to benefit. We are proud members of the Samford Sustainable Business Network.

• Coffee grounds – we bag our coffee grounds and place outside for interested customers to grab and use in their compost/gardens
• Bubble wrap – some of our ingredients come with bubble wrap packaging – we box this and put it outside on our reuse shelf for customers to take as needed. Whether this be other businesses using this to package their products before postage, using for moving house, creative teachers using it for artwork or even just using it to POP – we all love doing that! The only thing we ask here, is if you do use it and it can’t be reused again, that it makes it way to a soft plastic collection.
• Egg cartons – all our egg cartons get put on this reuse shelf too. So if you have chooks at home, feel free to grab as many as you like. PS. We only use free range eggs at the Patisserie!
• Containers – the containers that our ingredients come in get reused for storage in the kitchen itself, but when we have an excess or some we simply have no use for, we also place these on the reuse shelf. Who’s seen the massive golden syrup container that comes out?
• Food scraps – we also set aside our compostable scraps – fruit & veg waste, egg shells and our sugarcane hand towel. Please ask one of our staff if you would like some of this. Best to bring a container/box of your own to put this in.
• Takeaway coffee cups – our coffee cups are now fully home-compostable and/or recyclable! Please dispose of them appropriately.
• Soft plastic – our soft plastics are all collected and taken to a soft plastic recycling location. We definitely need one of these in Samford!

Anthony and some of the team at Samford Patisserie

Green Street News | Published 2 November 2022