Recycling Fever!
Cardboard
As you can probably imagine, we go through a lot of cardboard in a day. All of the different food items we have available at our stores comes in cardboard, things being sold in our gift shop come in cardboard boxes, even the golf balls that we sell at the driving range come in cardboard boxes.
When we started recycling cardboard, we actually got paid for it because not many businesses were doing it and the demand for used cardboard was high. Times have changed and for the last decade or so, we have paid the waste company to haul the cardboard away to get recycled. By doing this, we are reducing the amount of landfill space needed and of course are using less trees & energy.
Aluminum Cans
Most of you know that for the past few summers, we have had a promotion with Pepsi to place a coupon on Mountain Dew cans. This has been one of our most popular promotions, and as can be expected - we have collected a lot of Mountain Dew cans, 70,000 to be exact (or close to exact - that's a lot of cans to count).
We donate these cans to local charitiable organizations to recycle - they pick them up and take them to the recycling plant and keep the money to support their organizations. We have had some success in recycling cans from our company picnics during the year as well, using the same method.
Cooking Oil
We have been recycling our cooking oil for over 10 years. After we cook our french fries, onion rings, chicken and other goodies in the oil, it goes back to special equipment that filters the oil and otherwise cleans it for many uses - animal feed, cosmetics & soap. In the past few years, scientists have been able to use recycled cooking oil to burn in diesel trucks, busses and cars.