Skip to main content

Zero Waste Kitchen initiative challenges restaurants to improve sustainability

zero waste kitchen zerowastekitchen
ZWK/Bluecart
Restaurant food-ordering application Blue Cart launched the Zero Waste Kitchen initiative, which challenges chefs and restaurants around the world to limit waste and improve their sustainability. To help kickstart the movement, it challenged three chefs to improve their sustainability over the next two months and will share their steps with the industry and the world.

Although millions of people around the world still struggle to find enough food to eat, many parts of the developed world waste huge quantities of food. Blue Cart claims that its application can help restaurants cut their food waste by around 50 percent, so through its initiative, it’s hoping to take that even further and encourage all restaurants to follow best practices.

Recommended Videos

To that end, it’s challenged chefs Jehangir Mehta, Tanya Holland, and Tim Ma over the next two months, to waste as little food and energy as possible. Blue Cart will be assigning them a sustainability score to denote how successful they have been. It will be their challenge to improve that score over time.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

Developed alongside partners Food + Tech Connect, Entrepreneurial Chef magazine, Aspire, and 7Shifts, the zero waste program will be looking at food waste, how the chefs inhibit the use of paper, and how much they cut back on their electrical usage. In a more nebulous fashion, we’re also told they will be judged on their promotion of a more sustainable environment within the restaurant industry, according to Benzinga.

Set to begin on March 20, the Zero Waste Kitchen initiative will conclude on May 8, where the three chefs will take part in a live, three-day event on Twitter to answer any questions that fans or fellow restaurant owners may have about the improvements they made to their working environments.

Although much of this challenge must be taken in context with a pinch of salt — Blue Cart is using it to advertise its own app and web-based restaurant ordering services — the overall cause is admirable.

Updated 03/14/2017 by Jon Martindale – clarified that this is a challenge, not a contest. 

Jon Martindale
Jon Martindale is a freelance evergreen writer and occasional section coordinator, covering how to guides, best-of lists, and…
Ecovacs shows off powerful Deebot X8 Pro Omni robot vacuum at CES 2025
The Ecovacs Deebot X8 Pro Omni in its docking station.

Ecovacs came out swinging at CES 2025, revealing a slew of smart home products running the gamut from robot vacuums and lawnmowers to bizarre window-cleaning robots. The star, however, was the Deebot X8 Pro Omni -- a powerful robot vacuum that makes big changes to its mopping abilities thanks to a new collaboration with Tineco.

Though it didn’t pick up a robotic arm like the Roborock Saros Z70, the Deebot X8 Pro Omni did learn some cool new mopping techniques. There are two big upgrades here, the first being additional pressure while mopping. The X8 Pro Omni can create up to 4,000Pa pressure and spin at up to 200 rpm, which should result in better cleaning than anything else we’ve seen from Ecovacs so far. The other upgrade is a self-washing mop, which continually cleans itself while mopping your floors, ensuring every mess is tackled by a clean mop.

Read more
Samsung expects to ship Ballie, its futuristic AI robot, later this year
A close-up look at Ballie from the side.

Samsung first revealed Ballie several years ago at CES 2020 -- only for the home bot to go dark, before reemerging with a new design at CES 2024. At CES 2025, Ballie once again took the stage, and Samsung is officially claiming that the adorable robot will be coming to store shelves sometime this year. It’s been a long time coming, but it seems as if Ballie is ready to become your new household companion, and we’re excited about all the possibilities it can bring to your smart home.

Ballie is a home bot that makes liberal use of AI technology. It’s billed as a “self-propelled, autonomous home robot” designed with companionship, health monitoring, and entertainment features to help streamline your day-to-day tasks. Its built-in projector and speakers are the main way it’ll communicate with users, and they seem to be pretty robust.

Read more
The best robot vacuums of CES 2025: Roborock, Dreame, Ecovacs, and more
The Roborock Z70 with its arm extended.

CES is the place to go if you want to see the newest and hottest tech, and each year there seems to be one type of product that really steals the show. At CES 2025, that was robot vacuum cleaners. These little gadgets have been around for years now, but companies like Roborock, Dreame, and Narwhal are leading the charge with innovation and new technologies that make them even more efficient at what they do.

We spent a lot of time speaking with the teams behind these machines and watching them in action for ourselves, and these five robot vacuum cleaners are our top picks of CES 2025. As for hands-on impressions, you'll just have to wait until we have the chance to review some of these cutting-edge cleaners later this year.
Roborock Saros Z70

Read more