Sustainability at Longwood

Does Longwood recycle?
Does Longwood Compost?
What is composting?
How is compost made?
Why compost?
How is compost used?
What is the Terrace Restaurant doing to preserve our environment?
Does Longwood use eco-friendly products?
How does Longwood use its waste water for irrigation?

Does Longwood recycle?

Longwood strives to be a model for recycling and re-use for the community. Our environmental practices our firmly grounded in our mission as the living legacy of Pierre S. du Pont, inspiring people through excellence in garden design, horticulture, education and the arts.

Longwood has instituted a recycling task force, whose vision is to keep eliminating the amount of trash that we send to landfill until, one day, there is no trash to take away because it was all reduced, recovered, re-used or recycled.

Currently, Longwood recycles:
• All paper products and cardboard (except waxed cardboard)
• Aluminum
• Batteries
• Florescent bulbs
• Food waste
• Glass
• Horticultural waste
• Paint
• PCs and monitor
• Plastics (#’s 1 through 5), plastic flower pots
• Scrap metal
• Tires
• Waste oil

Does Longwood Compost?

Longwood Gardens began its compost program in the early 1990s. Today, all horticultural debris and food residuals are collected, composted and returned to the Garden to enhance our site.

Our composting program collects 8,000 cubic yards of discarded organic material from on-site and local contractors annually and saves $50,000 to $200,000 in costs to landfill discarded organic matter.

Learn more about Longwood’s Composting Operation.

What is composting?

Composting is the process of using active, controlled decomposition to recycle waste organic matter into various finished products that are useful for growing plants and improving soil.

How is compost made?

Compost can be made in many different ways but always involves gathering organic matter into piles or bins and then harnessing and accelerating the natural process of decomposition. It requires green (nitrogen-rich) materials, brown (carbon-rich) materials, air, water, and decomposers like microbes and earthworms. Mixed at the right ratios, these ingredients create compost over time (anywhere from a few weeks to a few years). At Longwood Gardens, we collect organic wastes from on site, as well as from community farms and businesses, to create different types of composted products. This includes our hardwood and leaf mulches as well as out finished compost product. 

Why compost?

Compost is a great amendment for soil beds and potting mixes as it increases organic matter, improves structure, supplements nutrients, and boosts beneficial organisms. It is also a great way to recycle. Items such as brush, discarded green plant material, and food scraps, which would otherwise take up space in a landfill, are transformed into a useful product through composting. At Longwood, we recycle all discarded organic matter on site through our composting operations.

Read some tips for composting at home.

How is compost used?

Compost is used as a soil amendment in many different capacities. Its main use for home gardeners is as an addition to a planting bed or a potting mix. It can also be spread on the surface of agricultural fields and turf grass or used as a cover over tree rings and planting beds. Although it is a very valuable product, compost is not soil and therefore it lacks some of the important structural components, nutrients, and living organisms that make soil so good at supporting plant growth. It also lacks the qualities of potting mixes which are carefully formulated for plant growth. For these reasons, make sure to use compost as a soil amendment instead of a soil replacement.

What is the Terrace Restaurant doing to preserve our environment?

 

Local Food Sources
The Terrace Restaurant is working with local farmers and produce distributors to provide our guests with the freshest seasonal foods while supporting our local farms. Local food means a dramatic reduction in transportation emissions, days of refrigeration, and packaging. Longwood is a proud member of the Pennsylvania Association of Sustainable Agriculture, working to further the connections between people and their food. 

Longwood seasonally grows herbs, fruits and vegetables in the Idea Garden, which are used in the 1906 Fine Dining Room. This means zero food mileage adversely affecting our environment!

Compostable Dishware, Cups, Bottles
While both compostable and ceramic dishes require resources to make and maintain them, Longwood has chosen to use compostable dishes in our Café for several reasons.

• Almost all of the compostable ware used in the Restaurant goes to Longwood’s large scale compost facility.  Instead of going to the landfill, it returns to the Gardens or our farm lands. This helps us close the loop by keeping organics here on site - nourishing our soils instead of creating waste.
• While Compostable dishes may take years, even decades, to break down in a landfill, they do eventually break down. A plastic or ceramic dish will not. The energy, hot water, and detergent required to maintain re-usable dishware is also not needed.

Even our current spring water is bottled in a compostable plant-based product instead of plastic – it gets composted right along with our food waste!

Recycling
Materials such as plastic bottles, light bulbs, steel cans, paper and cardboard that cannot be composted are recycled through different programs, ensuring landfill diversion. The water used at the facility is recycled as part of Longwood’s effluent irrigation system.

Efficient Lighting
We use energy efficient lighting in both the food service and dining areas. T5 lamps are lower than incandescent lamps in energy consumption, and metal halide fixtures consume 50% less energy and have a longer lifespan than incandescent lamps.

Natural Materials
The wallcoverings in 1906 are printed with water based inks and coatings, and manufactured using raw material recycling. In addition, the wall coverings in the Terra Cotta Room use water based inks and adhesives, with no heavy metals.

Solid surfaces throughout the Restaurant, including tray slides and counter tops, are made from low-emitting materials and are Greenguard certified. These surfaces are eligible for a number of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design LEED credits.

Sustainable Furniture
The benches in the corridors are made from a minimum of 70% recycled material content, FSC certified wood, and powder coat finishes contain no heavy metals.

The outdoor patio wood seating is made from teak wood from government-managed plantations in Java that restrict the number and size of trees that can be harvested, and requires replanting of the teak forests.

Tables in the Gallery and the Lodge are made of laminated granite to reduce the amount of natural stone used.

The Lodge features an innovative use of surplus seat belts as webbing for the barstool backs.

“Green” Upholstery
Many of the fabrics used throughout the Terrace Restaurant are PVC free or certified for indoor air quality under the Greenguard for Children & Schools Program.

Eco-friendly Flooring
Most of the carpeting is either made from recycled content (from 10% to 100% post-consumer material), or is 100% recyclable. The linoleum used on the lower level of the Restaurant is made from all natural materials and is SMART certified.

Does Longwood use eco-friendly products?

Our facilities department is committed to using eco-friendly products wherever possible:

• 100% recycled hand towels in restrooms and Green Seal Certified bath tissue
• Environmentally-friendly hand soap
• Micro-fiber dusting cloths that can be washed up to 500 times before needing to be replaced
• Washable mop heads

How does Longwood use its waste water for irrigation?

Longwood Gardens runs a 100,000 gallon waste water management facility. The daily amount of treated water is dependent on the number of visitors to the Gardens. On an average day, 30,000-50,000 gallons are treated, while a busy day might see the facility process over 60,000 gallons. All water is passed through several treatments before it is used for irrigation. The first phase of treatment filters out all solid waste. The water is then treated through several more filters that remove additional waste and includes the use of small amounts of chlorine and sodium carbonate. Once purified, the water is stored in a 9 million gallon holding tank where it can be used throughout the Gardens and surrounding meadows.