By Lauren Otis, Staff Writer
Could Saint Patrick’s Day get any greener?
Actually, for McCaffrey’s supermarket in the Princeton Shopping Center, the answer is yes, and yes for every other day of the year, too.
McCaffrey’s has chosen a day when the color green is ubiquitous to further its own environmental greening programs, launching a creative partnership for recycling and reuse of its food waste. McCaffrey’s is hosting area politicians and environmental groups at a gathering today, Tuesday, to showcase its green efforts.
McCaffrey’s has partnered with two companies — Organic Diversion LLC and Converted Organics Inc. — to recycle its food waste and convert it back into fertilizer, which then will be sold at the grocery store, according to Steven Carney, store manager of the Princeton McCaffrey’s.
”Probably the biggest impact we can have is in our food waste, and 75 percent of our trash is food waste,” Mr. Carney said. The new program “is going to reduce our trash tremendously.”
Organic Diversion will transport McCaffrey’s food waste to a Converted Organics food waste recycling facility, where it will be turned into fertilizer and packaged, Mr. Carney said. The fertilizer then will be repurchased by McCaffrey’s and transported back to the supermarket to be sold on its shelves, he said.
The partnership makes more than just environmental sense. Based on McCaffrey’s tonnage numbers and tipping fees for conventional pickup and disposal of its food waste, Converted Organics predicts “we are going to save 23 percent, and our trash bill is a six-figure trash bill,” Mr. Carney said.
For years, McCaffrey’s has been quietly improving its environmental practices to the benefit of the local community, according to Mr. Carney.
”It’s a story we’ve never told before,” he said.
Between 2007 and 2008, the number of reusable bags being used at checkout tripled at the supermarket, Mr. Carney said. As a result, McCaffrey’s purchased 2.8 million plastic bags in 2008, 204,000 fewer than in 2008, he said.
At its entrances, the supermarket has receptacles for recycled plastic bags and in 2008 took in 9.5 tons of them — the equivalent of 1.2 million bags — which it donates to Goodwill, Mr. Carney said.
Goodwill then sells the bags to Trex, a company, which produces wood-like deck products made out of recycled plastic, Mr. Carney said.
”It’s just amazing how we’ve been able to turn that around,” he said of the plastic bag program.

