Sarah's Café has been working for several months to reduce the restaurant's environmental impact. Sarah's Café has made significant changes in packaging, paper products, and cleaning products plus several enhancements to improve the building's energy efficiency and water usage. The goal of all the activity is to make this busy restaurant which can serve up to a 1,000 customers a day more environmentally friendly.

Sarah Heald, who started Sarah's Café in Boothbay Harbor as a home delivery pizza service, explains, "I made a commitment heading into this year that we would more aggressively pursue improving our waste stream and energy use to reduce our impact on the planet. For years we prided ourselves on serving wholesome fresh food, whenever possible made from local ingredients as our major selling point. Today I think it is important that people know you are doing all you can to be as green or friendly to the environment as you can."

Sarah's Café has replaced all paper and other packaging products with biodegradable for take-out business plus many our customers leave with doggy bags so it's a surprisingly large amount of materials. It can be a challenge to find environmentally friendly products that customers are willing to use.

"We want to be kind to the environment while preserving the experience that our customers expect. Napkins are a good example. We switched to a biodegradable napkin which doesn't perform at the same level as the napkins we previously used so we have had to place napkin dispensers on the tables so people can use as many napkins as the need," Sarah explained.

In addition Sarah's has made significant improvements in reducing energy consumption with a new energy efficient boiler and new windows, plus improvements to the siding and insulation. Sarah's has also replaced all incandescent bulbs with Energy Star compact fluorescent lamps. All the facility's toilets have been replaced with low flow models as has the dishwasher. "These are just a few steps in what will be an ongoing process. We are committed to making continued improvements over the coming months and years," Heald said.