Smith’s Compost Standings
My boss Lane Harper, Store Director for the West Jordan Smiths, is one incredible man to work for. He puts so much effort in being such a great person and pushes everyone to better themselves every day. When looking in his eyes, one Mammoth of a dude; you can see the big heart he has. As we sat down, I informed him on how much food our nation is wasting, our suffering losses, and the contaminating affects it has had environmentally on our planet. His body language read nothing, no shock in his eyes; which made me think, has he already been introduced to this topic, or is he somebody of the older generation on Americans who grew up not having to worry about where his waste has been going, and soon forgot about it as most of Americans, Businesses, and Corporations do.
From what I got out of our interview, Smiths Company owned by Kroger IS doing a ton to help out our planet, feed our hungry Americans, and much more. However, my interview is based off of what we do with our composted material, which hits a home run with our overfilled landfills and pollution to our planet. It is not about the money that’s donated to help out our people. It’s about recycling, reusing, and separating our composted material from the rest of our “Waste” To help reduce methane emission, free up our landfills, feed our hungry, fertilize our soil, convert it into energy, and get the most out of our wasted materials in the making of foods; water, oil, and life. I have found through working at multiple Smith locations within the realms of the Great Salt Lake that not all Smiths Grocery stores have composts, and the Smiths who have composts such as Smiths in West Jordan; isn’t sent to any special compost recycling place, it is sent to our Landfills. I asked my boss if they do anything with our compost when it is dropped off at our landfills. Harper said, “I am not sure if they make use of our compost, or just leave it untreated.” My research has shown me that food waste in our landfills is packed beneath our soil amongst everything else. The Smiths, and only three percent of all our compost is being extracted from the rest of our waste. Amongst the smiths I have had the opportunity to work for who have had composts, not just whole foods are thrown away in this thing. It is used as a garbage shoot from all departments of the Grocery store. This includes bathroom, miscellaneous trash, Out dated material, small pallets, grease from the deli, etc… This observation leads me to believe our compost waste is being treated as the rest of our trash in our landfills. My thought, “why have a compost if it’s used improperly?”
Mr. Harper did tell me that we could be donating more in the Produce Department (my current position). He also mentioned that our produce department could do something with our food waste. (Get rid of our salad trimmings, rotten fruits and veggies, everything we do throw away). The unfortunate thing is, nobody grasps how serious of a problem this is and my managers, bosses managers, managers and heads from all departments; haven’t created relationships with food banks and others who would use our waste. The sad thing is, harper said, “It is against store policy to distribute our “Waste” for free. It gets in to the Health Hazard bullshit and takes away from our profit.” But still, no matter how the situation is, I believe “Waste” should not be illegal to our public, period. I told me boss to “Cut the shit,” and I asked him, “Since when has it been right to make put a price on garbage? My boss and I are pretty close. I was just a little heated in the given moment. Internally, I knew that he agreed with me, but as a Store Director, he has to abide to the restrictions and guidelines he has to follow at Smiths, Kroger Corporation. He replied and said, “Your right, there shouldn’t be a price on our garbage, and we should really think about creating a REAL compost separate from our existing garbage shoots.” When it’s all said and done, atlas I expressed my deep concerns for the importance of composting our waste properly. If only I had enough power to enforce it to be mandatory for all grocery stores, and food corporations to properly compost their waste
From what I got out of our interview, Smiths Company owned by Kroger IS doing a ton to help out our planet, feed our hungry Americans, and much more. However, my interview is based off of what we do with our composted material, which hits a home run with our overfilled landfills and pollution to our planet. It is not about the money that’s donated to help out our people. It’s about recycling, reusing, and separating our composted material from the rest of our “Waste” To help reduce methane emission, free up our landfills, feed our hungry, fertilize our soil, convert it into energy, and get the most out of our wasted materials in the making of foods; water, oil, and life. I have found through working at multiple Smith locations within the realms of the Great Salt Lake that not all Smiths Grocery stores have composts, and the Smiths who have composts such as Smiths in West Jordan; isn’t sent to any special compost recycling place, it is sent to our Landfills. I asked my boss if they do anything with our compost when it is dropped off at our landfills. Harper said, “I am not sure if they make use of our compost, or just leave it untreated.” My research has shown me that food waste in our landfills is packed beneath our soil amongst everything else. The Smiths, and only three percent of all our compost is being extracted from the rest of our waste. Amongst the smiths I have had the opportunity to work for who have had composts, not just whole foods are thrown away in this thing. It is used as a garbage shoot from all departments of the Grocery store. This includes bathroom, miscellaneous trash, Out dated material, small pallets, grease from the deli, etc… This observation leads me to believe our compost waste is being treated as the rest of our trash in our landfills. My thought, “why have a compost if it’s used improperly?”
Mr. Harper did tell me that we could be donating more in the Produce Department (my current position). He also mentioned that our produce department could do something with our food waste. (Get rid of our salad trimmings, rotten fruits and veggies, everything we do throw away). The unfortunate thing is, nobody grasps how serious of a problem this is and my managers, bosses managers, managers and heads from all departments; haven’t created relationships with food banks and others who would use our waste. The sad thing is, harper said, “It is against store policy to distribute our “Waste” for free. It gets in to the Health Hazard bullshit and takes away from our profit.” But still, no matter how the situation is, I believe “Waste” should not be illegal to our public, period. I told me boss to “Cut the shit,” and I asked him, “Since when has it been right to make put a price on garbage? My boss and I are pretty close. I was just a little heated in the given moment. Internally, I knew that he agreed with me, but as a Store Director, he has to abide to the restrictions and guidelines he has to follow at Smiths, Kroger Corporation. He replied and said, “Your right, there shouldn’t be a price on our garbage, and we should really think about creating a REAL compost separate from our existing garbage shoots.” When it’s all said and done, atlas I expressed my deep concerns for the importance of composting our waste properly. If only I had enough power to enforce it to be mandatory for all grocery stores, and food corporations to properly compost their waste