Zero G Sustainability

While the impact might seem small, the environmental cost of using paper business cards quickly adds up. By switching to digital business cards, our team is saving trees, reducing waste, and improving our overall carbon footprint.

Single-use plastics have been a mainstay of food service for as long as most of us can remember. While this provided a cheap and sanitary solution for quick service counters, technology has made long strides in the past few decades.

As part of our sustainability intiative, we set out to replace all our food containers with biodegradable and compostable materials and found that these materials needed to be disposed of at a commercial composting facility. Since the greater Tallahassee area is not yet equipped with this type of facility, we shifted our focus to selecting packaging with the lowest environmental impact during production.

We have transitioned to plant-based plastics and bamboo containers that allow us to move away from petroleum dependent plastics and traditional paper products.

Fun Facts:

• Bamboo fiber containers use less energy than traditional paper during processing, plus bamboo replenishes itself much faster than trees.
• Curious why traditional paper cups can’t be recycled? Paper cups have a plastic coating on the inside to prevent leaking.

We now offer a Bring Your Own Cup option at the concession stand. Bring your own reusable bottle for fountain drink refills up to 40 ounces for only $5. It’s a refreshing way to treat yourself while reducing single-use plastics. 

We installed new water bottle stations at each water fountain so team members and visitors can easily fill their reusable bottles. Come fill up your reusable water bottle to see another number added to the total number of bottles saved. 

Our center maintains a comprehensive multi-stream recycling program. Throughout the facility, you will find Community Waste Stations equipped with clearly labeled bins for different types of waste and recycling, including landfill, bottles/cans, and paper. If you’re unsure which items belong in each bin, please refer to the images and information provided on the side of each bin. In our office spaces, we offer additional recycling containers designed for the collection of cardboard, small electronics, batteries, and other recyclable materials.

While clothing and textiles can be donated and reused, we tend to exhaust our resources for their full useful life. Since most recycling facilities do not accept textiles, these items usually wind up going to a landfill. We have partnered with a vendor that allows us to pay a small fee to fully recycle our textiles and divert them from the landfills.

As the K-12 outreach facility for the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering, we have partnered with FSU’s Office of Sustainability to evaluate our workspace proceedures and received a Gold level certification.

FSU’s Green Office Program is a certification process that promotes practices to reduce our overall footprint and build a university-wide culture of environmental care in the following sectors:

• Climate Action: Reducing greenhouse gas footprint through energy conservation and efficiency
• Waste Minimization: Maximizing the 3Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle) principles
• Resource Stewardship: Expanding commitment to best practices that prioritize the protection of the North Florida ecosystem
• Education for Sustainability: Ensuring all students have access to sustainability-related learning experiences