Every day, restaurants, grocery stores, and other food suppliers have thousands of pounds of surplus food and other items. For any number of reasons, these surplus items cannot always be sold and corporations need to redistribute them.
Birch Community Services:
- Prevents millions of pounds of surplus product from entering landfills (13.9 million lbs. last year alone!)
- Saves 250+ corporations thousands of dollars in disposal fees
- Redistributes products to families in need
- 900+ families weekly in Birch’s Sustainable Families Program
- 45,000+ individuals through 65 other nonprofits in the Portland-metro area
We provide complimentary pick-up of items from corporations!
Sustainability through Redistribution
Birch Embraces the 3Rs
- REDUCE FOOD WASTE:
We work with 300+ donors including Fred Meyer, Safeway, Winco, Costco, New Seasons, Charlies Produce, Darigold, Alpenrose, etc.
We pick up food from these locations that otherwise would be headed to landfills.
HOW WE USE IT:
Food is distributed weekly to nearly 900 families and 60 agencies (40,000+ people weekly).
2. REUSE:
We “repurpose” countless items from other organizations that would normally go to the landfill (ex. ice packs from Misfits Produce.)
COMPOSTING: We compost 3 yards of produce twice weekly. We have 26 farmers in total who pick up 5 days a week.
GARDENING: We have our own garden that we use to grow fresh produce spring, summer, and fall! We work hard to use sustainable practices through seed cultivating, composting, and more!
3. RECYCLING
We recycle typical residential recyclables in a 2-yard dumpster. We also recycle paper, cardboard, pop cans, metal, wood, pallets, and shrink wrap regularly.
2023 Recycling Numbers:
- 85,000 Returnable Cans
- 4,400 Wooden Pallets
- 325,000 Pounds of Cardboard
- $26,565 Revenue made from recycling