thimmakka

greening ethnic restaurants one establishment at a time

by kevin lee

It is no secret that the Bay Area is home to an extremely assorted collection of fine dining. A casual, ten minute stroll here in Berkeley can lead you to the pungent scents of faraway Ethiopian or Indian cuisine. Ethnic restaurants give patrons a taste of different cultures and lend depth to the uniquely diverse Bay Area landscape.

At the same time, behind the comfortable environment and delicious cuisine provided, restaurants must deal with energy inefficiency and solid wastes, most definitely a lesser-known and not-so-fine side of the restaurant business. For every scrumptious meal produced, restaurants consume great amounts of energy for refrigerating and heating food, while inefficiently disposing of environmentally-harmful substances such as excess cooking oils, greases, and other solid wastes leftover from the cooking and eating processes.

And the problem is not a small one. A 2003 study by the California Integrated Waste Management Board (CIWMB) concluded that among all commercial industries in the state, food is the most prevalent waste material. Food makes up nearly a fifth of all commercial waste, or over 3.5 millions tons a year. Earlier this year, the CIWMB analyzed the quantity and categories of waste production from a number of industries, including 27 full-service restaurants. The CIWMB concluded that every year, full-service restaurants produce 4,403 pounds of waste for every employee, among the highest industry rates of waste-production. Nearly two-thirds of the waste produced was some manner of food, or about 2,900 pounds per employee.

In 1998, activist and entrepreneur Ritu Primlani set out to change how society views environmentalism. Working with local governments, businesses, and restaurants, Primlani founded Thimmakka, a non-profit group devoted to combating the excessive, environmental inefficiencies of fine dining establishments throughout the Bay Area. “We wanted to outreach to ethnic communities,” Primlani stated. “Where do people meet? Besides churches and temples, people meet at restaurants for food. It only made sense to go there.”

Thimmakka is a non-profit organization dedicated to “greening” ethnic restaurants. “Greening” consists of applying environmental measures, implementing new equipment, and raising awareness for restaurant owners and patrons alike. Through greening, Thimmakka hopes to cut down on solid waste and air pollution while increasing energy conservation and recycling usage. While Thimmakka helps all types of businesses out, ethnic restaurants remain as primary environmental targets.

Primlani actually derived the name Thimmakka from a tireless south Indian activist of the same name. Nearly 50 years ago, Thimmakka, along with late husband Chikkanna, began planting banyan trees along a four kilometer stretch. Today, Thimmakka has “adopted” 400 banyan trees, planting, tending, and nurturing each one, treating them as if they were her own children. The activist Thimmakka embodies the core value that Primlani’s non-profit promotes: environmentalism should be accessible to everyone, regardless of class, race, or language barriers.

Thimmakka allows Primlani to combine her twin passions of environmental and social change, and the local community felt her impact immediately. Before Thimmakka, there was a total of one green ethnic restaurant in the Bay Area; after Thimmakka’s first year, there were ten. For Primlani, however, statistics are not wholly important; she wants to ensure that society as a whole is gaining environmental awareness, and the positives of greening. “Businesses that are not green are inconvenient to everyone,” emphasized Primlani. “They waste energy. They waste water. They pollute the air. They dump pollutants into landfills. We are trying to create an infrastructure that makes sense.”

Unsatisfied with Thimmakka’s growing influence in the Bay Area, Primlani is determined to spread its message of environmental awareness to restaurants nationwide. Today, Thimmakka continues to expand into other restaurant markets, and people are now coming to Primlani to help green their businesses. Through word-of-mouth, Primlani has been able to establish Thimmakka in both Miami, Florida, and Vancouver, British Columbia in Canada. Establishing guidelines for restaurant environmentalism is difficult because of how every locale approaches environmentalism as a whole. “Each county is unique,” observes Primlani, which makes it all the more impressive that Thimmakka has been able to coordinate activities from its Berkeley hub.

With over 100 restaurants in the Bay Area officially green, 15 each in both Miami and Vancouver, and more restaurants applying to become green, Thimmakka continues the struggle for overhauling and revising societal environmentalism. For Primlani, the struggle will not end until people recognize the practicality and benefit of green businesses. “We want to make systemic changes,” Primlani said. “Today, it is unconscionable to walk around with an African slave. That is our goal, to expand environmentalism, to make it part of civic sense.”

If you would like to help Thimakka’s cause, or would like an updated Green restaurant list, here is how you can get in touch: