Hopworks brewery and pubs create great beer and food by making thoughtful decisions that impact the entire life cycle of the product produced. Beginning with managing materials in ways that minimize environmental impacts and conserving our natural resources. Operating a business with a focus on zero waste has it challenges, but is worth every additional step and expense along the way!
ZERO-WASTE INITIATIVE
Pubs
● All to-go packaging is made with recyclable materials, and our pizza boxes are compostable curbside in Portland.
● Menus are intentionally designed to use food items that can be utilized over multiple dishes and stations to reduce food waste
● The kitchen teams are trained to use techniques to reduce food prep waste by using tools that maximize the yield on vegetables
● We hand-grate cheese scraps for our cheese sauces, and we are meticulous about composting any unusable food scraps.
● The pubs donate over 1,000 pounds of food annually to Urban Gleaners to reduce our food waste and feed families in need.
● We replaced paper menus with QR codes reducing paper use by 95%.
● Compostable straws available upon request
● We recycle crayons through The Crayon Initiative.
● The pubs use only refillable soap dispensers, ECO- cleaning concentrates, and high-powered hand dryers
● Robust recycling & compost programs
Brewery
We proudly divert 95% of our waste from the landfill. Our practices include:
● Reducing packaging through the recent installation of a second bulk silo dedicated to organic base malt.
● Reducing the size of our beer labels to save 3.9 million square inches of plastic each year, compared to a fully wrapped can.
● Buying chemicals in bulk including caustic, which is pumped into a large holding tank.
● Sending 100% of our spent grain to local farms.
● Partnering with Portland Pet Food Company to upcycle our spent grain into locally made dog biscuits
● Participating as a drop off site for Paktech handles where recovered plastic is recycled into new high-value goods.
● Managing a robust recycling system for all plastics, metals and wood.
● Founding the Malt Bag Recycling System with Country Malt and Vancouver Plastics with plans to recycle 200,000 bags in the first year. Details below.
● Resources provided on website on how to be more eco conscious consumer
● Zero Waste events on – site
Malt Bag Recycling
An average Pacific Northwest brewery uses approximately 1000 malt bags annually. These #5 polypropylene bags typically become landfill waste, with no viable recycling option until now. With this program’s launch, Country Malt Group and Great Western Malting collect the used bags and deliver them to Vancouver Plastics, where they are processed so that they can be upcycled in future plastic items – including new malt bags – helping to close the recycling loop and reduce environmental impact.
"As an eco-freak, I’m always looking for ways to reduce our solid waste,” said Hopworks owner Christian Ettinger. “Plastics are unique in that they are widely used, but rarely recycled properly, so it made sense to look at our plastic waste for opportunities to do better. Grain bags are sturdy and useful, and they deserve to be recycled rather than discarded after a single use. Thanks to our partnership with GWM and Vancouver Plastics, I am super excited that we finally have a simple, effective way to recycle malt bags!”