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Guide for Restaurant Managers Santa Maria has many restaurants. Together, these restaurants use hundreds of thousands of gallons of water each day to clean utensils, equipment, mats, floors, and exterior areas. Is your restaurant sending WASTE to Multi-Purpose Retention Basins (MPRBs)? Improper cleaning and waste handling practices can cause waste from restaurants to enter storm drains and pollute local multi-purpose retention basins (MPRBs). Bacteria levels increase when liquid and solid pollutants enter the storm drains. Poor cleaning and waste handling practices in restaurants send pollutants including solvents, floor cleaners, cleaning agents, grease, oil, food waste, cigarette butts, paper napkins, and styrofoam into storm drains and MPRBs. Food-related businesses can affect the local Santa Maria pollution issue in many ways. For instance, putting food waste in leaky dumpsters, not cleaning up outdoor food spills or chemical spills properly, and dumping wash water into the alley way, street, or gutter allows contaminated runoff to enter storm drains. To keep MPRBs clean, it is very important that all water used in restaurant cleaning be directed only to drains leading to the sanitary sewer. These common sense good housekeeping measures can be implemented with little effort and at a reasonable cost to the facility owner/operator. Cleaning and Disposal Cleaning agents and restaurant waste can pollute local MPRBs if they are not handled and disposed of properly. • Wash floormats, kitchen mats, filters, and garbage cans in a mop sink, janitor's sink, or near the kitchen floor drain. This will ensure that the wastewater will flow to the wastewater treatment plant and will not wash into a parking lot, alley, sidewalk, street, or storm drain. • Pour wash water into a janitorial or mop sink instead of onto a parking lot, alley, sidewalk, or street. These drainage areas all lead to the storm drain and local MPRBs. • Recycle grease and oil. Never pour oil into sinks, floor drains, dumpsters, or onto a parking lot or street. Grease can clog sewer drains and storm drains. Clogged drains smell bad to your customers and are unsanitary. • Sweep up food particles, cigarette butts, and trash from outside areas before rinsing or steam cleaning. Mop up excess water into a wringer bucket and empty this water into the janitor's sink, a kitchen floor drain, or the toilet so that it will flow to the wastewater treatment plant. • If you pressure-wash your outdoor seating area, entrance, or surrounding sidewalk area with bleaches, strippers, or detergents, don't allow any of this water to flow into the gutter. When cleaning trash containers or enclosures, don't let bleaches or detergents used to scrub them drain into the gutters, parking lot, or street. • Make sure that wash water only goes into a sanitary sewer. Remove all trash, waste, and dirt and dispose of them into a trash container. Spill Prevention and Cleanup Contamination from alleys, gutters, and streets enters storm drains that flow directly to local MPRBs. If wastewater evaporates before reaching the storm drain, the toxic materials remain on the street until the next storm washes it into MPRBs. • Use dry methods for spill cleanup, such as using cat litter to soak up spills and sweeping rather than rinsing spills. This will keep liquid waste out of the storm drain. • Sweep out debris from the trash container first, scrub with a hard bristle brush and nontoxic soap, then rinse off the residue into a sanitary sewer drain. Grease Management Grease management is a necessary task to help protect our water quality. If grease accumulates in the sewer lines, it can cause blockage, which may result in raw sewage spills. Grease that enters a storm drain
will flow into MPRBs untreated. Minimize Toxicity and Waste The City of Santa Maria Speaker's Bureau is comprised of a variety of local, scientific, government, and educational professionals whose expertise covers such topics as:
If you are interested in having a presentation on any of the topics, |
