Douglas McMaster, the founder of Silo, the world’s first zero-waste restaurant, has discussed the philosophy he has brought to the food industry and his latest venture. Silo takes a “bin-first” approach, with everything leftover fermented or composted and any packaging recycled or sent back up the supply chain. There are no general waste bins. Through his new platform, the Zero Waste Cookery School, McMaster aims to extend zero waste thinking into the kitchens of home cooks.
McMaster and his restaurant have been criticised in the past for preaching about sustainability but the chef is passionate about bringing about systemic change in the industry. His aim is to remove the bin altogether so that sustainability is central to the design of restaurant food. McMaster has also designed every item of furniture in Silo to emphasise the importance of zero waste.
Fermentation is the first line of waste-reduction defence in McMaster’s approach. The contents of Silo are designed from the ‘absence of bin’. The restaurant uses a “reduce, reuse, recycle” ethos but takes it to the extreme, to the point of not having plastic, bar what is in their ‘art cube’, and recycling just glass and cardboard. There is a hierarchy of waste – compost is good, recycling is medium and landfill is bad.
While he believes that every restaurant could do what they do, he questions how zero waste could work in the domestic environment. McMaster has recently turned his attention to this question and created the Zero Waste Cookery School to provide solutions for a wider audience, which includes cookery tips for those on a budget
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