Waste reduction on the menu

Waste reduction and sustainability are on the menu at a popular Victorian restaurant.

The Stokehouse Precinct in St Kilda has been awarded a 5-Star Australian Excellence Green Star Design and As Built Rating by Green Building Council Australia, a first for a fine-dining restaurant in the Southern Hemisphere.

The restaurant includes a cutting-edge waste management system that uses a range of technologies to maximise reuse and the development of a circular economy.

An aerobic biodigester unit breaks down organic food waste and an on-site glass crusher reduces glass bottles to a granulated form which are stored for collection and reprocessing.

The flooring was milled with reclaimed timber from a farm wind break in Gippsland, which was partially fallen.

City of Port Phillip Council worked with restaurant owner Frank van Haandel to help reinstate the Stokehouse building after it was devastated by a fire in 2014. Sustainability was integral to the design, construction and operation of the venue when it was rebuilt in 2016.

van Haandel hopes to encourage other hospitality venues to incorporate similar initiatives.

“I am extremely proud of what we have achieved when it comes to sustainability at the new Stokehouse Precinct, and what we have learnt. We are hoping to motivate and assist many other hospitality venues around Australia to follow and achieve a similar result.”

Other features of the Stokehouse rebuild include a geothermal-hybrid system to heat and cool the facility by using the constant temperatures of the earth underground, 50-60 metre wells for the refrigerant to circulate, a 28kW solar system on the roof as well as using Solarban 60 glazing on windows.

The use of Boral Envisia Concrete resulted in a lower-carbon material for the same strength as conventional concrete and water recycling in the pouring of the concrete recaptured or reclaimed about 90 per cent of water.

For more information, visit: www.portphillip.vic.gov.au