Photo: Chaiel Schaffel/WBZ NewsRadio
WEYMOUTH, Mass. (WBZ NewsRadio) — The bar at Brava Cucina in Weymouth is trying to breathe a second life into the scraps and trash they go through every day. The goal: a zero-waste bar.
Jose Carrasquillo is the bar manager at the Italian restaurant, and he has been finding new uses for the fruit leftovers generated behind the bar since the establishment opened in October.
“You want to repurpose, reuse as many of your ingredients from beginning to end, that includes skin, leaves, flesh, pulp,” Carrasquillo said. “When I do see there’s leftover trash, leftover pulp, I’m like, ‘I can do something with this.’”
His goal is to get as much life out of every ingredient he uses, even if that means inventing additions that are more outside-the-box. Some of these repurposed concoctions include juiced lemons being mixed in alcohol to make limoncello, and leftover passionfruit pulp being turned into a fruit butter or even a cracker as a garnish.
“I’m kind of a hoarder personally, so I don’t like to throw anything away,” he said.
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There are some ingredients he’s struggled to find more uses for. He mentioned how it took him about two months to figure out further potential for peach skins once their obvious uses ran out.
One he hasn’t been able to figure out has been the mangosteen, as the hard shell left over has little that can be done with it. He thinks he'll be able to extract some of the oils from the shell.
“They’re so delicious, but there’s not a lot to give after that,” he said.
Part of the point of the zero-waste initiative is sustainability, and the bar is certainly sending less to landfills. Jose produces around the same amount of trash in a week that another bar would make in a day or two, and most of that is wine bottles.
Carrasquillo has a space in the restaurant’s basement where he dreams up the repurposed inventions.
WBZ NewsRadio’s Chaiel Schaffel (@CSchaffelWBZ) reports.