Deeper Roots
Roastery

A Physical Waste Sort

Waste Characterization Objectives

Deeper Roots Coffee’s office and roastery location has an established waste reduction program, including commingled recycling and composting service. Deeper Roots’ staff requested a waste characterization audit from Hamilton County ReSource to:

Measure the effectiveness of the commingled recycling and composting programs
Identify opportunities for further reduction of the waste stream with an emphasis on the potential for expanding the current compost program
Collect baseline data for measuring the effectiveness of waste minimization strategies

Key Findings:
Compostable Material

The largest materials produced by Deeper Roots were compostable materials. Deeper Roots already had GoZero for compost service at the roastery and was composting 79% of its generated material; however, there is still potential to further compost 69% of what makes up the landfill waste stream.

By implementing an office compost program, Deeper Roots could increase its overall diversion rate to an impressive 91%. For reference, the TRUE zero waste certification defines zero waste as an annual diversion rate of 90%.

By the Numbers:
Results from Office Trash

Unpackaged Food Scraps - 61%

Other Trash - 18%

Packaged Food - 5%

Coffee Grounds - 5%

Plastic Film and Bags - 5%

Compostable Products - 2%

Cardboard - 1%

Clean Paper - 1%

Recyclable Plastics - 1%

Non-Recyclable Plastics - 1%

Trash

Compost

Recyclable

Results from the Roasterie Trash

Coffee Grounds - 42%

Full Coffee Bags - 16%

Release Liners - 15%

Compostable Products - 7%

Non-Recyclable Plastics - 6%

Clean Paper - 5%

Plastic Film - 1%

Other Trash - 1%

Cardboard - 1%

Packaged Food - 1%

Unpackaged Food Scraps - 0.5%

Deeper Roots Roastery