Community Food Co-op

Voted Bellingham's best grocery store. Full-service deli, hot bar, salad bar featuring organic, local, and natural foods. Everyone can shop, anyone can join. Co+op, stronger together.

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      • Community Food Co-op, Downtown Store, 1220 North Forest Street at Holly StreetDowntown Store
        1220 North Forest Street at Holly Street
        Bellingham, Washington
        7 am - 9 pm
        360-734-8158
      • Cordata Co-Op exteriorCordata Store
        315 Westerly Road at Cordata Parkway
        Bellingham, Washington
        7 am - 9 pm
        360-734-8158
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You are here: Home / Archives for recycle

Recycling Tips From Your Co-op

by Melissa Elkins, Sustainability Coordinator

April 2021
colorful illustration of earth that says celebrate earth day on april 22

In honor of Earth Day, we are sharing recycling tips from your co-op.

It's important to us to share the best way for you to responsibly dispose of the items you purchase at our stores, so you can reduce the waste stream at your home.

Learn more about Sanitary Service Company's curbside recycling and FoodPlus! collection.

Learn more about sustainability at the Co-op.

The Community Food Co-op is an industry leader when it comes to waste diversion. We recycle, compost, donate, or reuse over 90 percent of what the grocery industry considers waste, which qualifies us a Zero Waste business. We even started recycling old membership cards and gift cards when you turn them in!

We recycle, compost, donate, or reuse over 90 percent of what the grocery industry considers waste

We are also committed to helping you reduce, reuse, and recycle at home. To that end, we strive to offer our housemade bakery and deli items in packaging that is either recyclable or commercially compostable.

Below is a quick guide on how best to dispose of the goodies you bring home from the Co-op.

Plus a few recycling opportunities in our stores for household materials that aren’t collected curbside.

Fun fact: In response to a shopper’s suggestion, we recently started collecting manual toothbrushes and empty toothpaste tubes for recycling. That’s just part of The Co-op Difference!

We love how our Co-op community pushes us to continue improving the services we provide.

Thanks for your suggestions!

Co-op items recyclable in your blue curbside recycling bin:*

photo of plastic takeout deli containers that can be recycled curbside

Co-op items recyclable in blue curbside recycling bin:*

  • All two-piece plastic deli and bakery containers, rinsed
  • Clamshell containers, rinsed and lids separated from base
  • Plastic sample cups
  • Plastic cold beverage cups (in September 2019 the Co-op started offering plastic cups only by request)
  • Glass jars and lids
  • Take-and-Bake entrée packaging

*Similar items from other businesses may not be recyclable or compostable.

Co-op items compostable in your curbside FoodPlus! toter:*

  • All Co+op branded paper-based packaging,including shopping bags
  • Coffee bags (marked compostable, with tie removed)
  • Coffee and soup cup lids
  • Straws
  • To-go utensils
  • Freezer paper (for items ordered from the meat case)
  • Gift card sleeves

*Similar items from other businesses may not be recyclable or compostable.

Co-op items destined for the landfill:

photo of items from the co-op that need to be throw away as garbage
  • Foam trays from the meat department
  • To-go coffee box (the outer box can be recycled with cardboard, but the foil packet inside must go to the landfill)
  • Various foil and plastic film wrapping (mostly used for grab-and-go sandwiches)
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SUSTAINABILITY| THE CO-OP DIFFERENCE compost| curbside| foodplus| recycle| sustainability

Sustainability: It’s What We Do Every Day at the Co-op

by Melissa Elkins, Sustainability Coordinator

local, whatcom, skagit, san juan snohomish icon

$30 MILLION

After adding staff wages and local service contracts and applying the local multiplier effect, shopping at the Co-op kept more than $30 million circulating in our local economy in 2015.

washington state outline locally grown

14.3 PERCENT

We focused even more on local and Washington state suppliers in 2015, purchasing a whopping 14.3 percent of our products from producers in our region.

bike bicycle graphic

31%

Co-op staff use alternative transportation for 31% of their total commuting miles.

Our electric car chargers at the Cordata store made 1,522 electric car charges—displacing 1,193 gallons of fuel.

toward zero waste, recycle, reuse, reduce, recycle icon

92%

We diverted 92 percent of our total waste from the landfill.

When it comes to sustainability, we're proud to be a community (and national!) leader.

Connection to community is something that has always attracted people to Bellingham—we are lucky enough to live in one of the most beautiful places on Earth, in my opinion, and a vast number of us care deeply about our city for myriad reasons. The Co-op itself is a direct reflection of our community, as its values and business practices have always been shaped specifically by those who live and work in Whatcom County. To that end, sustainability isn’t something that requires any special consideration in our organization—it is so ingrained in our structure that we live those values every day.

At the Co-op, local isn’t a buzzword, it’s an important part of the framework that makes us who we are.

We have come to realize the value of sharing those practices, so we are proud to say that our third annual sustainability report was published in June for fiscal year 2015. It requires the collection of data that encompasses our entire scope of business—from labor practices to purchasing practices and from resource use to education. The collected data is compiled into an extensive report detailing our successes and areas for improvement.

Following are just a few highlights from 2015:

  • Cordata store became LEED certified in June 2015
  • LED lighting was installed throughout the Cordata store and Downtown bakery cafe
  • We started purchasing Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) to offset 100 percent of our electricity use organization wide in June 2015
  • As a result, we were named as a member of the EPA Green Power Leadership Club, one of only about 400 businesses in the entire country
  • We eliminated plastic packaging from our deli counters in December 2015, which we expect will remove over 25,000 plastic containers from the local waste stream in 2016
  • We carried 587 fairly traded items. Co-op shoppers can feel good knowing that the people who work hard to produce these products are being treated fairly. Look for fair trade items in our grocery, wellness, and produce departments.
  • We joined the Domestic Fair Trade Association—currently, we are the only retail business in the DFTA north of Seattle.

We track these numbers so we can work to improve. Every year we set the bar, then we work to raise it.

Read the complete report at
www.communityfood.coop/learn/co-op-sustainability.

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SUSTAINABILITY alternative transportation| epa green power leadership| fair trade| leed| recycle| reduce| renewable energy| reuse| sustainability| toward zero waste

Categories

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2022 Community Shopping Day Donations

Every year, the Co-op Member Affairs Committee (MAC) and Board of Directors selects community organizations to be the monthly Community Shopping Days (CSD) recipient. CSD recipients receive 2% of the Co-op’s total sales on the third Saturday of their designated month, and all register donations made during the month. Now [...]
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Earth Day at the Co-op

This Earth Day, we’re sharing some of our favorite sustainable products and actions to help you be gentler on the Earth today and everyday.

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Black History Month: Celebrating Black Innovators in Agriculture

This Black History Month we’re celebrating Black innovators in sustainable agriculture. Learn about the contributions made by key players.

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DOWNTOWN STORE & DELI • map • 360-734-8158 • 7 am – 9 pm
meat and deli counter: 7 am – 7 pm
made-to-order counter: 7 am – 6 pm
salad/hot bar: 7 am – 6 pm

CORDATA STORE & DELI • map • 360-734-8158 • 7 am – 9 pm
meat and deli counter: 7 am – 7 pm
made-to-order counter: 7 am – 6 pm
salad/hot bar: 7 am – 7 pm

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