If the meals prepared at DC Central Kitchen look and taste a little familiar to you, it may be because they're made from ingredients served at the restaurant you dined at last night with friends across town. Or maybe from the hotel bar where you snacked while entertaining clients, or even the bakery that doled out free garlic knots as you waited for your order.

But Scott Sellers, one of the Kitchen's many regular volunteers, saw a gaping hole in its mission. According to Sellers, the Kitchen is, in effect, recycling people, but not the food. "The food is sacred because [it's] feeding the people at the Kitchen--then you just throw it away?"

The 30-year old D.C. resident is resolving that inconsistency. "The cycle should be [complete]," he says, "so I looked into composting." He understands the food is already being reused once by taking what has been deemed trash by others, but through the composting process, the Kitchen's waste and scraps can fertilize more food, thus closing the loop. His hope is that the Kitchen can contribute to the compost material that helps small farmers as far away as southern Virginia and across Maryland, as well as the growing number of urban gardeners in D.C. who, like all city-dwellers, have limited ability to create their own [gardens].

In preliminary research, Sellers found that the U.S. House of Representatives, under directives from Speaker Nancy Pelosi, created the Green the Capitol Initiative in 2007. Working by email and phone, Sellers got the attention of Perry Plumart, Deputy Director at the Initiative. After meeting with him at the Capitol, Plumart promised to help any way he could, pointing to a few possible paths. Sellers contacted waste management companies, eventually leading him to the District Department of the Environment (DDOE).The District office didn't have composting services in place, but was receptive to the idea, and more importantly, offered Sellers exactly want he wanted. "[The DDOE] said that if I can get [composting] started at the Kitchen, then they will help advertise it and use it as a business model for others."

The advertising they discussed would be a booklet that blueprints a way for small businesses to create their own composting program. With that currency in hand, Sellers got back on the phone. "If you provide service to the Kitchen," he told the composting and collection companies,"I can get you free publicity [in the DDOE booklet]." If those companies are listed as a resource or contact, he believes they will inevitably see a spike in their revenue. That's one way sustainability will thrive within the food service industry: The vendors increase their customer base, and their clients save money because composting and recycling are significantly cheaper than amassed garbage services. As an example, according to Sellers, if the Kitchen was paying $5 for trash pickup, now it might only be paying $2.75 when that same volume of waste is segregated.

Bringing a composting program to the Kitchen is still in its beginning stages, much like the efforts of many organizations to find a way to remain financially black while being environmentally green. "It has to economically make sense," says Sellers. "It has to pay for itself." It's true of his project at the Kitchen, but of sustainability as well-it's the only way the idea can survive social and commercial inertia. But explained in these simplistic amounts and finding success in such a grassroots approach, the inter twining of responsible living and good business practices looks not only promising, but imminent. 

Derek Stovesand lives in Charlotte, NC.  He spends most of his time staring at spreadsheets for a national homebuilder, but bookends his days by writing each morning and night, equally indulging the right and left sides of his brain.  As sustainability takes root in global commerce, he looks forward to chronicling its efforts and crunching its numbers.