Coors Recycles® teams up with Recyclebank® to reward consumers for their environmental efforts.

Coors Brewing Company, inventor of the first 100% recyclable aluminum can in 1959, last month kicked off its latest sustainability initiative by announcing a partnership with Recyclebank®, the company that rewards people for taking everyday green actions with discounts and deals from more than 4,000 local businesses and national brands. The program, Coors Recycles®, will support the Recyclebank mission to promote environmentally conscious waste disposal through a monetary contribution and special packaging.

Share your best ideas for innovation in teaching sustainability by April 1, 2013.

By Christopher Koetke, CEC, CCE, HAAC

The Kendall College School of Culinary Arts and CAFÉ are proud to announce that entries are being accepted for the 2013 CAFÉ/Kendall College Green Award. The first national award dedicated to building the body of teaching knowledge for all sustainability educators, it recognizes innovative teaching and projects that could have applications for other culinary programs across the country.

All secondary and postsecondary culinary-arts and baking/pastry programs are eligible to enter. Entries will be judged based on the level of innovation; perceived impact on students’ understanding of sustainability practices and their importance; and the ease with which elements of the winning program can be implemented by other culinary programs nationwide.

The Great American Can Roundup Industry Challenge raises more than $183,000 for charity.

As the nation celebrated America Recycles Day on Nov. 15, the aluminum-beverage-can industry announced it had collected and recycled more than 235,100 pounds of cans, raising nearly $183,830 for local charities across the country according to the Can Manufacturers Institute (CMI).

The Rexam North American beverage-can headquarters office in Chicago won first place in the annual industry competition, with 70,775 pounds of used aluminum cans (874 per capita), followed by Novelis in LaGrange, Ga., whose employees collected 3,517 pounds of cans (352 per capita). In third place is Ball Corporation’s plant in Findlay, Ohio, collecting and recycling 36,611 pounds (101 per capita). Winners are selected from the highest per-capita collection rates based on the number of pounds of aluminum collected per employee at each site.

Produced for only $0.88 a gallon to operate the college’s vehicles, the savings from converting cooking oil to fuel rather than purchasing regular diesel is huge.

The delicious smell of hot, freshly made doughnuts and French fries is wafting through the air at The Culinary Institute of America at Greystone in Napa Valley, and it has nothing to do with the creations from the college’s culinary students. It’s the smell of cooking oil turned into biodiesel fuel being used in campus vehicles.

The biodiesel fuel is created on campus from used cooking oil gathered from the fryers in the college’s teaching kitchen and Wine Spectator Greystone Restaurant. About 50 gallons of cooking oil is transformed into 45 gallons of fuel by putting the oil into the CIA’s biodiesel distiller. This machine removes the fatty acids from the oil and cleans out impurities. The oil is then heated to a high temperature to remove any remaining water in the mixture.

The City of San Diego opens a much-wanted Public Market.

By Candy Wallace

Talk the talk about providing outlets for citywide farmers’ markets so residents can source healthy food and eat fresh AND go one step further and walk the walk by starting a public market. VERY BIG DEAL!!

The City of San Diego just received a delicious gift that will impact not only the food community itself, but all of the residents who take advantage of the newly opened San Diego Public Market.