According to Treehugger, Americans consume 70 million restaurant meals a day at almost one million establishments, which produce 50,000 pounds of waste and use around 300,000 gallons of water every year.  I have no idea where they’re getting these excessively approximative statistics from, but that’s beside the point as far as the Green Restaurant Association, a national nonprofit trying to cut down on some of that energy abuse, is concerned.  They serve restaurateurs by keeping up a list of green products available for sale, and diners by keeping up a list of green restaurants in which to eat—in other words, those that have a comprehensive recycling program, eschew Styrofoam, and commit to four of the following environmental guidelines.  So far, 1000 restaurants in 23 states have gone certifiably green.

Both the New York-based Eat Well Guide and Minnesota-centered Greenroutes project do similar good work, listing restaurants, shops, hotels and other establishments that sell sustainably raised meat, poultry, dairy and eggs, or use green building techniques or renewable energy.  Greenroutes has a cool mapping function to help you plan trips, making a vacation to Minnesota sound incongruously appealing.  And the Eat Well Guide is surprisingly comprehensive—I tried to find stump the search function by looking for really obscure places.  Much to my delight, many of them were listed. 

Sydney, Australia has just celebrated Earth Hour by turning off a good number of the city’s lights for an hour, and there’s a fun article here about restaurants serving cold dinners by candlelight.  Showing significant business acumen, the manager of a hotel bar that just went carbon neutral stated, “People often say if they’re tackling global warming one drink at a time they’ll have another one.”  Hey, why not?  The staff calculated that all it would take to go 100% carbon neutral was 2.5 cents (Australian) per drink sold.  Apparently, over 2 million Sydney households and business participated in Earth Hour, lowering the city’s energy usage by 10.2%, the equivalent, the WWF calculates, of taking 48,613 cars off the road for an hour.  

Let’s see more, more, more!  This is all very inspiring. 

Nathalie Jordi's appetites keep her bouncing between between County Cork, New York, London and the French Alps.  When not slinging curd or interviewing farmers, she writes for Travel&Leisure, Conde Nast Traveler, Gastronomica, and her blog at www.autobiogeography.com.  Her dreams of a life spent baking, drinking margaritas, and sitting in the sun are gathering steam during her current stint as a waitress in New York City.