Name: Scott Lipscomb
Title: Environmental Coordinator
Company: McMenamins
Years with McMenamins: Almost 24 years
Primary responsibilities: “Diverting waste out of the landfills at our 56 locations (including our 10 hotel properties), educating employees and setting up recycle/compost programs at locations.”
Company’s biggest accomplishment in the area of sustainability so far: “Waste diversion, saving historic properties and reinvigorating communities.”
Company’s biggest challenge in the area of sustainability moving forward: “Better energy management, using LED lights, using alternative energy sources, reducing our carbon footprint.”
PORTLAND, ORE.—Scott Lipscomb is always trash talking. It is his job, literally, as Environmental Coordinator at McMenamins in Portland, Ore. If there is something that can be donated or recycled, it is Lipscomb’s job to make it happen. McMenamins has provided Lipscomb with many challenges since he began working for the company in December 1992. Then, McMenamins had just 12 locations. Today it has 70 pubs and restaurants, 25 breweries, two distilleries, a winery, and 10 hotels.
“I started as a regular pubster,” Lipscomb says. “After a couple of years the person handling the recycling program for our company was leaving. I have always been a proponent of recycling so I applied and got the position (recycling coordinator). In the beginning I would work 20 to 25 hours a week picking up recycling at the locations in the Portland area and our beer truck would bring back recyclables that were not recycled locally. I would then recycle those materials here in Portland at several different recycling centers. As the company grew we changed my job title to Environmental Coordinator.”
What can be recycled typically depends on the community in which a McMenamins hotel, pub or restaurant is located. “Wherever the location is we start with what we can get recycled by the garbage company that will service it,” Lipscomb says. “This usually includes paper, newspaper, cardboard, metal, aseptics (milk cartons), glass and fryer oil. Other items include corks from wine bottles, plastic bread bags and pallet wraps, and food waste where permitted and where we have space for extra waste containers (we have over 20 locations participating in compost programs). All computer and other electronic items are all donated to a local computer recycling facility. All of our breweries and two distilleries have local farmers take our spent grains from the brewing process and recycle it as feed for animals. In the fall when we do our crush at the winery all the organic waste is composted. I do not have volume figures but we have anywhere from a 55 percent to 65 percent diversion rate at most locations.”
Lipscomb says opportunities for recycling are greater in the larger cities that McMenamins operates in, but there are also excellent recycling programs in Bend, Eugene, Salem and Corvallis—all cities in Oregon.
Focus on Kitchen Best Practices
Aside from making sure that what can be recycled is recycled, or what can be composted is composted, Lipscomb educates employees on best practices in the kitchen—for example, managing FOGS (fat, oil, grease, and solids) and keeping them out of the drain lines, operation of all dish machines and chemicals used, and overseeing all cleaning chemical uses. He has assisted with procurement—researching compostable to-go containers, for example.
During his time with McMenamins Lipscomb has watched many fluctuations in the recycling market. “I have seen the market go up and down greatly over the last 20 years,” he says. “With items like used fryer oil, we have gone back and forth a couple of times from being paid for the material to having to pay for its removal and recycling.”
Lipscomb also assists with identifying opportunities for energy and water conservation. He said he is in the process of completing the benchmarking of a McMenamins hotel. “I have found the process very challenging and look forward to finishing this so we can look at reducing our energy use by bringing in LED lights, alternative energy, and heating and cooling improvements,” he says.
Lipscomb says he has had an interest in recycling since 1977 when he was involved in a church in downtown Atlanta. “The Sunday school class I was in would go into City Hall and remove newspapers for recycling from designated areas,” he says. “We had a drop box in the church parking lot for the newspapers. We even got an award from the mayor.”
Go to McMenamins.
Glenn Hasek can be reached at editor@greenlodgingnews.com.
