High altitude, low waste

If you're a regular summer hiker, you know the drill: everything that goes up must come down. As a junior mountain explorer on my first trip to a mountain hut, I wondered: how do the hut's guardians plan the meals and deal with the waste from all the guests? There are more than 800 huts around the Alps. One of them is Sewenhütte, in central Switzerland, at an altitude of 2,150 metres. I spoke to the hut guardians Ursula and Walter Gehrig about their food and waste management in the summer season. At Sewenhütte, meals are made with fresh ingredients as much as possible, which means deliveries are carefully planned to prevent food from spoiling in storage. “It’s not about having different products, but rather having products that can be used for several meals,” said Ursula. The helicopter, their preferred means of grocery shopping transport, delivers around two tonnes of food once a week and costs them around €1,100. The secret is in the storage When the delivery arrives, Ursula and Walter safely store everything for the coming days. There’s storage space in the kitchen, the basement, and even on some shelves above the couple's bed. Dairy products are stored in a concrete cooler outside, chilled by mountain spring water. However, as summers get warmer, it's not as cold as it used to be. On our dinner menu is a veggie soup, salad, pasta with either vegetables or meat, and a dessert. Meal planning gets more challenging with people who have dietary restrictions, or groups that stay for longer, as the team is reluctant to serve the same meal twice. What about leftovers? They're eaten by the employees, and any remaining vegetables are mixed into the soup the next day. The staff also directly call you out when your eyes are bigger than your stomach. “If a school class visits, we tell them they’re only allowed to eat portion by portion, so plates come back without leftovers,” said Ursula. After breakfast – which is an open buffet with homemade bread, cheese, cereals, and…