Hillside Coffee and Tea is striving to be greener every day.

We take pride in our movement towards a more sustainable way of doing business. Our goal is to enact positive change in the region and lead as a primary example of what is needed to create healthy, sustainable communities. Through innovation, purchasing preferences, operations, standards, enthusiasm, and rapid-paced growth, we believe we can have a net positive impact on the region.

With your help we can do even better job.  Please keep reading to find out how you can help.

Our current commitments to improving the way we do business include:

Transportation

  1. Increased the amount of food baked IN HOUSE therefore eliminating the need for deliveries
  2. Increased compost and recycling storage to minimize waste pickups and reorganized bakery and coffee deliveries thereby reducing total number of trips by over 10%
  3. Switched suppliers to reduce travel. 
  4. All products sourced locally or at furthest are grown/manufactured within Canada and/or the US.

Purchasing 

  1. Switched to compostable hop and cold cups and soup containers
  2. Switched to recycled paper towel with the least packaging

Energy & Water

  1. Switched bathroom lighting to high-efficiency, and long lasting CFL bulbs 
  2. Most equipment is unplugged at night to reduce phantom loads
  3. The sanitizing dishwasher is now only run when full
  4. Installed a low-flow dishwashing wand
  5. Installed motion sensor low flow bathroom taps and low flush toilets

Waste Management 

  1. Our to go cups are produced from compostable materials, please compost
  2. Introduced extensive recycling and composting systems to reduce our landfill waste by 90%
  3. Purchased recycled plastic containers for our waste management system
  4. Our lids for both hot and cold to go cups are recycable, please put into blue bin (plastic recycling)
  5. The cold to go cups are compostable.
  6. We offer a discount to customers who their own reusable mug
  7. We have “paper towel” bins in the bathrooms, so we can compost over 80% of paper towel (would be 100% if customers followed the instructions on the signs)
  8. We have drastically reduced food and milk waste by tightening up on orders and measurements

Local Community 

  1. Separate coffee grinds from compost for local residents’ gardens
  2. Sponsor a number of local fundraising and community events (talk to us if you are in need of help!)
  3. Introduced MUCH healthier options! Ask our staff for details

 

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