The video features a visit to Silo, a highly innovative zero-waste restaurant located in Hackney, East London. The restaurant's concept centers around eliminating waste by processing all materials within the premises and sourcing directly from producers using reusable or biodegradable vessels. This approach significantly reduces the necessity of bins and the typical supply chain waste associated with conventional dining establishments.

The video also introduces the unique practices and design elements within Silo, showcasing the creative reuse and upcycling of materials. For instance, light fixtures are crafted from used wine bottles, floors and ceilings are made from cork and sheep wool, and even the cutlery and furniture are created using waste materials like plastic bags and wood trim. Additionally, the inclusion of an on-premise pottery studio allows glass to be recycled and transformed into new items directly within the establishment.

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Key Vocabularies and Common Phrases:

1. phenomena [fəˈnɒmɪnə] - (noun) - Plural form of phenomenon; observable events or occurrences that are significant in some way. - Synonyms: (events, occurrences, cases)

The bin is a relatively modern phenomena, or modern design.

2. improbable [ɪmˈprɒbəbl] - (adjective) - Not likely to be true or to happen. - Synonyms: (unlikely, doubtful, implausible)

The last 5% is not impossible. It's improbable, but it's not impossible.

3. biodegradable [ˌbaɪoʊdɪˈɡreɪdəbl] - (adjective) - Capable of being decomposed by bacteria or other living organisms and thereby avoiding pollution. - Synonyms: (eco-friendly, compostable, environmentally safe)

We try and get the things that we need in reusable vessels or completely biodegradable materials.

4. upcycle [ˈʌpsaɪkəl] - (verb) - To reuse (discarded objects or material) in such a way as to create a product of higher quality or value than the original. - Synonyms: (repurpose, recycle, refurbish)

upcycle recycling is where you turn a thing, which is waste, into a new thing.

5. transcends [trænˈsɛndz] - (verb) - To go beyond the limits of; to surpass. - Synonyms: (surpass, exceed, excel)

Upcycling is where you turn a thing, which is waste, into a new thing. It transcends that thing into something with a greater value.

6. reflector [rɪˈflɛktər] - (noun) - Something that reflects light or another form of energy. - Synonyms: (mirror, returner, bouncer)

But it also sparkles from the inside. It's a natural reflector, a diamond universe.

7. lacto fermentation [ˈlæktɵ ˌfɜrmɛnˈteɪʃən] - (noun) - A method of food preservation where lactic acid bacteria are used to ferment at room temperature. - Synonyms: (pickling, fermenting, curing)

This is a lacto fermentation, which is the old way of pickling.

8. surplus [ˈsɜːrpləs] - (noun) - An amount that is more than what is needed. - Synonyms: (excess, extra, remainder)

The excessive amounts of surplus that is in every restaurant is what makes restaurants waste half of the food that they purchase.

9. resilience [rɪˈzɪliəns] - (noun) - The ability to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness. - Synonyms: (toughness, durability, strength)

It gives us resistance to failing as a business, because our food costs are up to 90% gp.

10. treacle [ˈtriːkəl] - (noun) - Thick, sticky syrup made from partly refined sugar or molasses. - Synonyms: (syrup, molasses, glue)

Then we've got this magical syrup. So this is the vegetable scrap treacle, and it is absolutely delightful.

Inside London's 'zero waste' restaurant - FT Food Revolution

So, Tim, we are here today on a beautiful day in east London. We're here in hipster central Hackney. East London. Absolutely. To see quite an exciting restaurant. Silo. It's a zero waste restaurant. What does that even mean? Basically, I think they keep all their waste inside. They process it, they deal with it, and they don't put anything back into the environment. They're doing their very, very best to sort of turn stuff away before it becomes a problem and then to deal with it sensitively when they have waste.

We've looked at all sorts of people on the subject of sustainability going through this, and this guy's doing it more than anybody else. Everybody else we've spoken to so far is kind of aspiring to some of the stuff this guy does. You've eaten here before? I haven't. I'm curious how that ethos translates into the dining experience. What's it like? I think the food is phenomenal. I think he's an amazing chef. I think the place is significant. But I'll be interested to hear what you think about it.

Okay, let's do it. Let's go check it out. Hi there. Hey. Hey, how you doing? Nice to see you. Good morning. Nice. Good to see you again, Doug. This is a zero waste restaurant. What is a zero waste restaurant? So a zero waste restaurant is the idea of trying to not have a bin. Humans created the bin. The bin is a relatively modern phenomena, or modern design. You could argue that it's only around 60 or 70 years old. And trying to design it out of a food system has been my lifetime's work.

In a nutshell, the 95% of what would necessitate a bin, we cut out by a system change, which basically means we go to farmers, fishermen, foragers, and try and get the things that we need in reusable vessels or completely biodegradable materials. When, after we've all said and done and cooked and fed customers, everything remaining, in theory, would be natural and therefore compostable. 95% of that supply chain is farm to table. Farmers are coming in directly. You'll see outside stacks of vegetables in crates that are completely reusable, that have been directly dropped this morning from the farmers.

The last 5% is where it gets really challenging. So plastic is everywhere. Plastic is a virus. Plastic is very challenging to keep out of the front door. How does it find its way in the 5% of things that you need as a restaurant, when you need a new material, such as a blender that comes in plastic and trying to speak to a big industrial warehouse that you don't want. That single use plastic bag around your blender is highly unsustainable for a restaurant such as this to try and organize. So you really can only take zero waste a certain.

Well, the last 5% is not impossible. It's improbable, but it's not impossible. And that's where we get really creative. So the zero waste ethos extends from the plate to the design of this place as well? Absolutely. Almost every material is a bespoke design made out of waste or regenerative materials. So this is a pendant which is made out of waste. Seaweed and seaweed. Seaweed, yeah. What inspired you to make a pendant out of seaweed? That seems extraordinary.

Well, it's one of many friends who are designers who look at waste as a raw material rather than a waste material. So instead of making a seaweed broth and then throwing the seaweed away, you see that as a raw material that can be bound together and formed into something that we can use. The lights you can see on the wall, this is our wine bottles. So you recycle the wine bottles that you use in the restaurant. That's a lot. That's a lot of wine bottles.

upcycle recycling is where you turn a thing into the same thing. A can into a can. A bottle into a bottle. Upcycling is where you turn a thing, which is waste, into a new thing. It transcends that thing into something with a greater value. How much would you pay for an empty wine bottle? Zero. Nothing. You probably. Well, you do pay to get rid of it, right. So it's a negative value. If that was the light that you wanted in your house or whatever, probably paid several hundred pounds. Yeah, yeah. It's big, big dollar.

So as well as the pendants and the glass you can see on the wall, there's regenerative materials such as the cork floor. So you're not killing a tree, you're harvesting the cork. The wool on the ceiling is from a sheep. Both are great for sound absorption and warmth. This chef's knife is. This is milk bottle tops. And this blade is made from nitrous oxide canisters. So this is made out of waste. Plastic bags. How does a plastic bag turn into something so beautiful?

Determination. Waste is waste because it's hard to do things with. To get there has taken eight years. Wow. So, yeah, I'm going to show you the pottery. It's quite small for a pottery. So, Tim, I'd like to introduce you to mark. We're in a bit of a tight squeeze here. A really tight space. The smallest pottery in Hackneywick, there's our little crusher. So here's where we get our little bottles that come. That are consumed downstairs in the restaurant. And you just. And then they go into the machine and they are crushed and is what we produce.

Wow. So this is what we do, we crush the bottles, then we get this fine sand. We even look for a finer sand. So that's glass. That's almost powder. And that's. That would work as a glaze, I guess. Well, we are looking into turning that into a glaze as well. So finding many ways we can. Basically, no grain is wasted. It's probably 20% of all of our glass goes into this process. Certainly all of our clear glass.

All your clear glass, which is the best, that's the best recycling glass. And you're keeping that literally in house between that machine and that. And this gentleman doesn't leave the building, you're effectively. The glass is not leaving the building. That's astonishing. Look at that. But it's also. It sparkles from the inside. It's a natural reflector, a diamond universe. This is a beautiful semi translucent plate made from a wine bottle. So you can get your kilns up hot enough here to melt glass.

Well, interestingly, to recycle glass is about 1750 degrees. We're using about 700 to 1000 degrees. So it's a thousand degrees cooler. So the implications of our process versus recycling is huge in terms of environmental impact. The way this idea was born in my head was simply, we stood looking at all this single use glass and thinking, this is not really zero waste. We're not taking responsibility for this material in our system, we're exporting it to another system. And so I wanted to find a responsible way of processing it ourselves from there, use that as a raw material to upcycle into things that we need. Oh, nice. Very cool.

For me, what's important with silo is to prove that sustainability is sexy. Luxury and sustainability can be one of the same thing. When we built these hollow legs to fit these cutlery caddies inside, there was a lot of waste. We were using a wood called ash. And then, you know, cutting it into these exact plinths. And instead of wasting all of that sort of trim, we made this sculptured reception desk. And you can see the joins of all of the pieces of wood, or ash. It was a work of art.

It's a work of art made from the bits of waste ash. And then the waste from that went on the fire. This is astonishing. The excessive amounts of surplus that is in every restaurant is what makes restaurants waste half of the food that they purchase. And so fermentation offers us a way of turning all of that surplus into magnificent things that end up not just being used, but end up defining the dish itself. We discover flavors out of this process, which then guides us to a dish. It's not the primary cut. It's this flavor, which is so dominant that we design around that flavor.

So it's ironic that the waste is designing the dish. And what am I seeing here? There's a Hereford fryer garum. There's a goat cheese garum down there. Chicken wing, smoked mushroom. This is the outer leaves of a calaboss cabbage. This is a lacto fermentation, which is the old way of pickling. The original way of pickling. The lactic acid from the vegetable itself changes the ph. And cabbage. That's it. And room temperature and time. So that's a really simple example of, like, the outside leaves, which are unruly, and you can't put them on a plate. We take. We shred, and then we turn into kraut, which will then feed back into addition.

One way or another. 98% of the food that comes through the door go into products. And it's because of this. It gives us resistance to failing as a business, because our food costs are up to 90% gp, as we call it, which is a 10% best case scenario. Food costs. So typical restaurants, more like 30 to 50. We're ten. So what we're looking at here, Doug, this is the quava. So this is the best example of upcycling our fermentation. So this is the waste of the waste turned into a delicious snack. Then we've got this magical syrup.

So this is the vegetable scrap treacle, and it is absolutely delightful. It's quite like a fruity marmite, which might not sound good, but it's really good. And what goes into the treacle exactly. So imagine all of your veg scraps that you just can't think of what to do with. All gets cooked into a big vegetable soup. So it's mushy. Strain it through a sieve. The yield of the mush is like this, whereas the original veg pile was this, and then all the nutrients and the flavors are in the water.

And then you reduce that water into a syrup. So we've got the quaver, which was, in this case, a blue cheese miso. And then all I'm gonna do is take a block of frozen goat's cheese. Wow. Some smoked salt. Smoked in hair just there. Nice. You can see the smoking log as it stands. And then we're just gonna pop it onto one of our plates made from upcycled plastic bags. That is absolutely ridiculous. The brown gloop. The brown gloop is pretty gorgeous. For me, this is innovative cooking. This is what excites the hell out of me, you know, this is what keeps gastronomy exciting. What do you said earlier that sustainability could be sexier? You weren't wrong.

What goes into your ice cream? Okay, so the ice cream is made from waste bread. The wafer's made from waste bran. The syrup is made from buttermilk. That looks glorious. Wow. What's the business case for doing this? Does zero waste harm or hurt your bottom line? The first thing I'll say is, eight years in business, can't afford a Tesla just yet, but I'm stood here. This is a pretty, I think, beautiful dining room.

We are very busy. It is absolutely a valid, economical design. There is no, like, big angel investor here. I started this restaurant with 33,000 pounds that I remortgaged my mother's house from. That's legit. And I was picking equipment up off the side of the street and using it, using waste and finding creative ways of turning it into things that we needed. And hopefully now the blueprint that we've created can be mimicked and replicated. Has it been, as far as other restaurants out there doing anything like this or anything close to it? Still that hard to do. But bits of what you've done do? Yes.

This is like couture. You're not going to wear the things you see on the catwalk day to day. It would be stupid. You'd fall over. But on the other hand, it changes the way everybody dresses. This seems very much like that kind of model. Love that analogy. That's my favorite analogy I've heard this year. That's brilliant.

Sustainability, Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Education, Technology, Creative Reuse, Financial Times