Dining out
Choose certified green restaurants
East Bay Certified Green Restaurant List
Courtesy of the Bay Area Green Business Program, this site lists green certified restaurants in the Bay area. You can search by city, cuisine type, or view a list of all restaurants. Areas considered in certification include energy and water conservation, recycling, and pollution prevention.Green Restaurant Association Certified Green Restaurant Guide
The GRA's Certified Green Restaurant Guide features more than 300 restaurants—including sit-downs and cafés, coffeehouses, resorts, bakeries, pubs, and even cafeterias in schools and museums—across the US and Canada that have been certified green. You can either peruse a list of all certified restaurants, or search by city, state, and/or zip code, and by type of restaurant.Quality Assurance International Certified Clients Database
Quality Assurance International certifies food vendors—including restaurants—as purveyors of high quality organic food. You can search their database by city, state, country, type of operation, and which guidelines they comply with. Your search will return results for bakeries and coffeehouses, as well as sit down restaurants, if you search any type of operation, rather than specifically searching only for restaurants.Thimmakka Certified Green Restaurant Status List
This Bay Area-based organization lists ethnic restaurants that they have certified green in the cities of Berkeley, Oakland, Fremont, San Jose, and San Francisco. To be certified by Thimmakka, restaurants must follow the environmental guidelines laid out by the Alameda County Green Business Program.Virginia Green Restaurants
This site contains a list of restaurants in Virginia that have committed to recycling of glass products and grease, eliminating Styrofoam and reducing disposables, and implementing water-efficiency measures, and conserving energy. The list is compiled and reviewed by the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ).
Choose restaurants serving local and organic food
Chef's Collaborative
Chef's Collaborative Local Food Search allows site users to search for member restaurants serving sustainable cuisine in their area. Member restaurants serve seasonal, local, and environmentally friendly foods, including only food items that have been sustainably grown or fished. Members also buy foods that are grown in accordance with diversity preservation and traditional practices. The organization has more than 1,000 members nationwide.Eat Well Guide
The Eat Well Guide offers a free online directory of almost 9,000 farms, restaurants, stores, bed & breakfasts, and other outlets that offer sustainably farmed meat, poultry, and dairy products as well as flower products in the US and Canada. Enter your zip code or use the advanced search feature to look for antibiotic- and hormone-free animal products, as well as those raised via sustainable production methods, including organic, pasture-raised, and heritage.FoodRoutes.org
The FoodRoutes Network sponsors Buy Fresh Buy Local chapters throughout the country. These chapters find ways to connect consumers to local food vendors via outreach education, community events, festivals, and farmers markets. Check for a BFBL chapter in your area to see where to buy locally grown produce, flowers, meat, and other foods.Happy Cow Vegetarian Guide to Restaurants and Health Food Stores
At Happy Cow you can find restaurants that serve local and organic produce—and no meat at all—as a way to bypass altogether the environmental degradation associated with meat production. The website lists restaurants (and health food stores) in North America, Europe, Australia, Asia and the Middle East, South America, and Africa.Local Harvest
Find organic, sustainably grown meats, dairy products, and other foods at local farmer's markets, community-supported agriculture co-ops (CSAs), family farms, and restaurants in your area. Local Harvest provides nationwide directories. In addition, the organization offers locally grown meat and animal products from family farms around the country via its online store—everything from bison and emu meat to duck eggs and sheep cheese.Low Impact Living's Organic Dining Across America
Low Impact Living has compiled a resource listing many organic restaurants across the United States. Links on the main page will take you to lists and descriptions of organic restaurants in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York City, Boston, Chicago, and Seattle. For other locations, click on the link to nationwide organic restaurants.Organic Kitchen Restaurants Listing
Organic Kitchen provides a list of restaurants serving organic food and beverages by state. The list is not comprehensive—a highlighting of Organic Kitchen's picks—but is constantly growing.The Organic Food Database
This website database lists restaurants, farms, CSAs, and food vendors who sell organic foods in the United States, the United Kingdom, and around the world. The site also includes information about organic health, organic farming and gardening, and other organic practices.
Walk or ride your bike
Alchemy Goods Urban Bag
Hip, roomy messenger bag with an exterior made of 100 percent waterproof recycled inner tubes from Seattle bike shops and strap made from a recycled seatbelt. Multiple interior pockets with space to fit laptops with up to 17" screens.Blackburn Quadrant and Mars 3.0 Combo Bicycle Light Set
The set includes a front light with four super-bright white LEDs and rear light with seven super-bright red LEDs, both in tough, water-resistant cases. Front light runs on four AA batteries for 110 hours in steady mode, or 300 hours in flash mode while the back light runs on two AAA batteries for up to 50 hours in steady mode, or 150 hours in flash mode.Green Earth Office Supply Recycled Rubber Backpack
The material for these backpacks comes from 100 percent post-consumer recycled rubber (Florida tires). They're fully lined, have a convertible strap, outer magnetic snap pocket and inner zipper pocket. They come in black, peanut or a black/peanut color combination.Hemp Sisters Deluxe Hemp Backpack with Laptop Storage
Heavy duty hemp backpack with triple-stitched construction for durability and strength with padding on the back, bottom and straps for your comfort. It has six zippered compartments, nine pockets, twin cargo straps, bottle pockets on each side and room to securely hold your laptop.Hokey Spokes light blades
Hokey Spokes puts the glitz into safety lighting with transparent "blades" that attach to your bicycle spokes. They explain their product by saying, "as these blades spin during riding, a computer inside the blades modulates the internal LED lights so that design images and custom text appear."Planet Bike Beamer 3 LED Headlight
This headlight can be quickly mounted or removed without tools and contains three bright LEDs which operate in flashing or steady mode. The light runs up to 100 hours on the included two AA batteries.Planet Bike Blinky Safety Set
Super bright LEDs will clip to almost anything and provide flashing or steady visibility for up to one mile. Runs for up to 100 hours on the included CR2032 watch battery.Rawganique Euro-style Hemp Backpack
They have five hemp backpacks to choose from; all are made from certified organic hemp, processed without chemicals or pesticides. The HBP3 Zip Backpack is their mid-priced, mid-sized model.Reelight SL100 Bicycle Safety Light
The set includes one white front-facing and one red back-facing light that uses LED technology and high-power neodymium magnets (non-friction) in an innovative self-contained electrical system. Lights flash on and off as you pedal and stop when the bike stops.Voltaic Systems Solar Backpack
The Voltaic Backpack has three light weight, waterproof solar panels that can charge up your cell phones, sat phones, PDAs, GPSs, iPods and cameras (not laptops) while you bike or walk. When not in the sun, the battery can be charged using the AC travel charger or DC car charger.
Comments
2:21pm
Partnership for Bar and Restaurant Recycling "this is great idea " im sam , im a chef @ hong kong but we didnt have this kinds of promotion ,
how can i get the information to do this promotion in hong kong ?im think a lot of bottle is waste from the bar ......then after we collect them....how can i Recycling it.
thx
11:34am
Hi Sam. I did some looking around and found a few resources that may be able to help you get a restaurant recycling program established in Hong Kong. Check out the Business Environment Council at http://www.bec.org.hk/eng/green_hotels.aspx. They have developed a Green Restaurants website (http://www.greenrestaurant-hk.org/) with info on Hong Kong restaurants that may also be able to help you. You could also contact the Environmental Protection Department at http://www.epd.gov.hk/epd/, or the Hong Kong Federation of Restaurants and Related Trades. Also, the The Omni Marco Polo Hotel in Hong Kong seems to have made some "green" upgrades in the past, so someone there may be able to tell you how they did it. Good luck and please keep us posted on your efforts!
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