Recently, my family ate at Ted's Montana Grill, where we enjoyed a lovely meal and some interesting information about the restaurant's green efforts. Ted's Montana Grill was founded by Ted Turner and George McKerrow, Jr., as part of a for-profit effort to stop the extinction of American bison. Their effort against the declining bison population isn't their only admirable endeavor; in fact, it's not the reason why I'm mentioning them in the first place.

 

Ted's Montana Grill has a goal of being 99 percent plastic free: it uses only paper straws, the menus are printed on 100 percent recycled paper, the to-go cups are made out of corn starch that biodegrades in 50 days and the take away food is put in Bio-Plus Earth Containers. The company's environmental efforts aren't confined to plastics -- many of its restaurants have water-efficient toilets, and all of the locations use low voltage lighting.

 

The restaurant features plenty of bison products (National Bison Association-certified) and just about any order can be replaced with a vegetarian option. However, I don't think there are too many bison farms near Arlington, which forces the question: how local are their food suppliers? Sadly, I wasn't supplied with too much information on that subject. On the whole, Ted's Montana Grill makes a good effort to make sure its business is sustainable, but it still has a ways to go before it can earn an "A" in my book.