Notes from the Zero Waste Austria Meetup

People were still dropping in after the meetup had started at 6pm, before the break there were approximately 40 people listening. Helene welcomed the audience, thanked Andrea for hosting Zero Waste Austria and presented the Agenda. Then she gave a short introduction of Manuel Marinelli's Project Manaia and showed a part of his Ted Talk “Oceans will keep us alive – if we let them”. Andrea Lunzer, founder of Lunzer's Massgreisslerei, gave an insight in her background, the difficulties on convincing big companies to reduce waste and how she established her Greisslerei.

Franz Seher, founder Holis Market

​His take-aways from 4 month running Holis: 

•  supermarket issues are more troublesome than the ones that are special for a less-/free-packaging-oriented concept
• customers are used to fixed prices for a product instead of having to weigh it; this “extra work” bores them easily
  
• the needs of people are endless → it's hard to keep the focus on a certain product range if you want to meet people's demands
  
• communication is essential for convincing customers to buy a certain product at your store while they get it cheaper at a big supermarket that buys larger amounts and therefore can calculate differently.

Discussion

Q: What is Andrea's and Franz' opinion on Slow Food? Can she imagine a cooperation with this movement?
A: Andrea is confused about the movement's message. She fist learned about it in Italy and was interested in it, but now they are collaborating with even big companies such as Ströck (she was referring to the event "Kruste & Krume" at the Markterei Martkthalle on January 23 where 25 Austrian bakeries take part). She dpubts the quality and the strategy of the movement.

Franz is quite positive about the idea of Slow Food, yet he prefers talking to the suppliers personally first. Some producers do not want to take on the sign of being ecologic for different reasons so he does not want to take it as the main criteria for selling these 
producers' products at his store.

Q: How does Holis meet the zero waste-strategy?
A: Holis tries to keep both packaging and food waste to a minimum. The kitchen serves about 100 dishes a day. The supermarket has only been running for four month so there is still a lot of improvement to do. The plastic waste is approximately 2 to 3 kg and the food waste 120 kg a month, which might sound much, but is little for a supermarket plus restaurant.

Q: How difficult is it to find suppliers?
A: Franz was surprised how easy it was to find suppliers. Holis is much bigger than Lunzers Massgreisslerei: The space for sales is 200 square metres and he has more staff than Andrea, but he does not have the same product range as a normal supermarket. So he has to find other ways to increase the turnover, e.g. by organising courses and running a restaurant.

Q: What are the most important products?
A: For Franz vegetables are definitely the most important products. In the beginning he did not want to offer a non-food section, but only two months later he understood that there was a demand for these products. Now he even offers cleaning stuff in containers and bottles, tooth brushes etc. Drinks are also bestsellers, mainly beer and “hipster”-drinks.
Other unpacked goods that sell well are sweets and muesli. Andrea confirms that vegetables and fruits are the most “sexy” products in her store as well. Other attractive goods are dairy products, bread and muesli.

Q: Does Holis have a deposit system for bottles, containers and bags?
A: Most loose goods are packed in paper bags that are intended for a one-way use. Right now there is no deposit on bags. Some of the juice, jam, … containers have deposit, some do not. For some products he even delivers the glass jars to the producers to fill them with the product and the consumers bring the empty ones back. But it is not possible for all products.

Q: How big is the share of regional/Austrian food?
A: The focus lies on products from Upper Austria (about 50%), 20 to 30% are from other parts of Austria, the rest comprises of exotic products like spices and tea.

Q: What about the transfer packaging?
A: For liquids there is 0% waste. They come in steel barrels which are directly set up in the store.
Dry products usually com in 10l-, 26l- or 50l-barrels made out of plastic. They are filled by the producers and kept in Holis' storing room. So they are reused often. The problem is with certain suppliers like Sonnentor who use big paper bags for their spices etc., but at least the amount of waste is much smaller than for prepacked products
in conventional stores.

Zero Waste Austria Website

After a short break that was used for shopping, greeting friends and networking the Zero Waste Austria team briefly presented itself before revealing the website and the blog. Helene invited the audience to like the Facebook-Page, to feel free to share links and pose questions there and to visit the website. She pointed out the interesting projects that already were to be found on the website. A discussion followed on whether to use German or English as the main language. The first answer was “both”, then it was pointed out that there surely already was enough content in English about zero waste on the web. So for reaching the German speaking community it might be better to write in German. To put it in another way, it could be seen as a statement. There even came the suggestion to supply a summary in the other language and that maybe the community would slowly start translating the articles.

Visit Website

Gianluca Alfano Waste as resource

Gianluca Alfano held a short presentation on the topic “Waste as a resource for a Zero Waste business?” He started with the definition of the term “packaging” and its importance when it comes to safety. By an example he made the supply chain visible. Then he showed possible materials for packaging and distinguished three types of packaging: the one that actually contains the product, one that keeps several of these packages together and finally the packaging for transportation. Gianluca gave examples of over-packaging, e.g. cucumbers that are wrapped in plastic. There are even cases where the packaging weighs 300% as much as the actual product. He pointed out that our drive to recycle everything at home can have the opposite effect, namely that it complicates the recycling process. Material that is contaminated with food is difficult or impossible to recycle, and tin foil is classified as product, not as packaging. It is easy to check if there is the recycling sign printed on the product to make sure if is considered as recyclable or not. In Europe there are different compliance schemes regulated by the EU, national or local authorities. Gianluca explained the EU strategy on waste and the European compliance schemes. Different strategies have been developed like the Dual System that had been started in Germany, the Producer Responsibility Fee and the waste management tax on the end user. Finally he showed a chart on packaging waste versus recycling from 2012 in Europe. Yet it is not about how much we recycle but how much we consume.The discussion that followed his prestentation brought up questions about e.g. tetra pack. It is difficult and inefficient to recycle this material, but the producers want to give it the image of being friendly to nature. Compared to glass that is only used once it still is a better solution. Andrea pointed out that glass, once downcycled, becomes brown or green. Coloured glass is not popular in retail, though. Helene had to cut the discussion since time had run out. She thanked the audience for coming and invited them to come to Café Else to continue talking and networking there.Waste business?” He started with the definition of the term “packaging” and its importance when it comes to safety. By an example he made the supply chain visible. Then he showed possible materials for packaging and distinguished three types of packaging: the one that actually contains the product, one that keeps several of these packages together and finally the packaging for transportation. Gianluca gave examples of over-packaging, e.g. cucumbers that are wrapped in plastic. There are even cases where the packaging weighs 300% as much as the actual product. He pointed out that our drive to recycle everything at home can have the opposite effect, namely that it complicates the recycling process. Material that is contaminated with food is difficult or impossible to recycle, and tin foil is classified as product, not as packaging. It is easy to check if there is the recycling sign printed on the product to make sure if is considered as recyclable or not. In Europe there are different compliance schemes regulated by the EU, national or local authorities. Gianluca explained the EU strategy on waste and the European compliance schemes. Different strategies have been developed like the Dual System that had been started in Germany, the Producer Responsibility Fee and the waste management tax on the end user. Finally he showed a chart on packaging waste versus recycling from 2012 in Europe. Yet it is not about how much we recycle but how much we consume. The discussion that followed his prestentation brought up questions about e.g. tetra pack. It is difficult and inefficient to recycle this material, but the producers want to give it the image of being friendly to nature. Compared to glass that is only used once it still is a better solution. Andrea pointed out that glass, once downcycled, becomes brown or green. Coloured glass is not popular in retail, though. Helene had to cut the discussion since time had run out. She thanked the audience for coming and invited them to come to Café Else to continue talking and networking there.

German Version