Publix hits 1 billion mark in reduction efforts

One billion.

That's the number of paper and plastic bags kept out of the waste stream by Publix Super Markets since the grocer initiated conservation measures in 2007 at 1,023 stores in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama and Tennessee, company spokeswoman Brenda Reid recently reported.

The Lakeland, Fla.-based grocery chain, with 11 stores in the Charleston area, reached the milestone earlier this month by training cashiers to increase the number of items per bag, implementing bag reduction goals for each store, encouraging the use of reusable bags and donating reusable bags to nonprofits and partner organizations throughout the Southeast.

The measures helped reduce the use of paper and plastic bags by more than one million per day.

The company has offered in-store recycling of paper and plastic bags since the mid-1970s and introduced its first 99-cent reusable bags in mid-2007. Since the introduction, more than 13 million reusable bags have been sold at Publix locations.

In 2009, the company's overall recycling rate was 45 percent. That year, 210,000 tons of cardboard, 7,000 tons of plastic and 2,200 tons of mixed paper were recycled by the grocery chain, which helped save approximately 5.2 million trees, 16.8 million gallons of water and 1.8 million cubic yards of landfill space.

Food lines

Downtown Charleston will soon have a new restaurant with Caribbean flavor.

David Baysden, former owner of Reggae Reef on the British West Indies island of Anguilla, is renovating the building at 68 Queen St. into a Caribbean-style restaurant that will be called David's on Queen Street, according to commercial real estate broker Mark Mizell of the Sadler Group, which brokered the deal.

The site, which has been the home of a tea room, art gallery, law firm and the restaurant Mint Juleps, plans to open in October, Baysden said. The restaurant will include an outdoor bar and seating in a tropical garden. During the first week in November, Caribbean musician Sprocka will perform.

Also, High Hammock, a restaurant venture by Charleston-based Maverick Southern Kitchens at the seaside resort of Pawleys Island, has shut its doors after two years. Dick Elliott, president of the restaurant group that owns Slightly North of Broad, High Cotton and the Old Village Post House, said his group miscalculated the effect of seasonal fluctuations in the Grand Strand market when it launched the U.S. Highway 17 restaurant in 2008.

Elliott said the business is now for sale and he is working with partners of the Hammock Shops to find a new operator.

A new One

Local boutique One at 478 King St. will reopen its doors today to celebrate a new partnership between local designers Rachel Gordon and Natasha Shamdasani Madan.

The celebration from 5-8 p.m. above the Silver Dollar will include a champagne toast and the collections of both designers' labels -- Gordon's One Love clothing and Shamdasani Madan's Taashki handbags -- along with guest artists' work for sale. Ten percent of proceeds from the evening will go toward MUSC Behavioral Medicine.

CPR for phones

A company that specializes in smart-phone parts, repairs and accessories opened its first South Carolina store at 471 King St. on Wednesday. The Louisiana-based company, myPhoneMD, provides CPR -- or cell phone resuscitation -- for iPhones, Blackberries and other smart phones.

In the know? Do you know of a business that is opening, closing or expanding? Reach Warren Wise at 937-5524 or wwise@postandcourier.com.