ABC permits:

Restaurants must

recycle beverage containers
By Jeff Eason
eason@mountaintimes.com

If you recycle your household’s beverage containers, you know what a pain in the neck it can be to separate glass from aluminum from plastic and then separate the glass items into clear, brown and green categories as required by the recycling center in Boone.

Now imagine doing that for all of the beverage containers that are used by a busy restaurant. It’s a lot of work but two area restaurants have been cited by the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources (NCDENR) as examples of how restaurants can recycle responsibly.

Because of a new state law, the rest of the restaurants in the High Country will be forced to follow their lead. North Carolina’s General Assembly passed House Bill 1815 two-and-a-half years ago to little fanfare. The bill requires holders of certain Alcohol Beverage Commission permits to implement recycling efforts for beverage containers sold on the premises.

The new law went into effect Jan. 1, 2008.

When the law was first passed, it stated that businesses failing to comply with the new recycling requirement would have their ABC permits revoked. That sparked enough of a reaction from owners of restaurants and bars that the General Assembly re-wrote the law this past fall, softening the legal ramifications. The new law now states that violations can result in both a fine and “the suspension of ABC permits.”

Suspensions are temporary, whereas revocations are permanent.

NCDENR conducted a survey of state restaurants last year and found nine that it considers models of responsible recycling. Of that nine, Pepper’s and Café Portofino are located in Boone.

“Pepper’s was one of the first restaurants in Boone to establish a comprehensive recycling program,” stated the NCDENR Bar and Restaurant Recycling Case Study. “Pepper’s recycles glass beer and wine bottles, tin cans, corrugated cardboard and aluminum cans. Employees are well attuned to recycling because many of them are ASU students with a strong commitment to the environment.”

Of Café Portofino, the case study stated, “(Owner) Sandee (Ashbee)’s background has shaped her view of recycling. Although she believes recycling to be a bit more expensive than disposal, she has opted to recycle because it is the environmentally friendly thing to do. Café Portofino has collection bins in the taproom and crates in the restaurant. Employees take the bins and crates out to the back of the restaurant, where aluminum cans and glass bottles, separated by color, are placed into the eight, 96-gallon rollout bins provided by a commercial hauler.”

While restaurants, such as Café Portofino and Pepper’s, already have recycling systems in place, others will have to catch up on the fly. In addition to training employees, finding space to store recyclables and buying bins, most restaurants will need to find a commercial collection service.

“We use GDS for our recycling,” Ashbee said. “It’s not a freebie. It costs us $172 a month for them to come and pick up our recycling. But we feel we wouldn’t do it any other way.”

Ashbee stated that before GDS began its recycling service, she and co-owner Burt Meyers would haul recyclable materials to the recycling bins at the county disposal site east of Boone.

“We started recycling everything that we could after we opened about six-and-a-half years ago,” Ashbee said. “It’s always been important to us.”