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Community Corner

Playdrome's Greening Initiatives are Serious Business

The popular Route 41 entertainment center has made improvements that save energy behind the scenes so you can have guilt-free fun on the lanes.

An energy-intensive operation like a bowling alley isn't the first place you'd look to find a staunch advocate of ecological awareness. But that's exactly where—and how—Jon Perper found his footing in environmental business.

As the owner of Cherry Hill's Playdrome Bowling & Entertainment Center, Perper had grown accustomed to managing his electrical consumption, the third largest expense of the 36-lane bowling alley. With a bar, restaurant, arcade and billiard center in the same facility, Perper knew he had many points of entry to begin to make his mark.

His interest initially stemmed from a 2007 meeting with Cherry Hill's former mayor Bernie Platt, where Lori Braunstein of Sustainable Cherry Hill introduced the newly instated RecycleBank program. Perper figured the least he could do was offer free bowling games for the recycling company's rewards program.

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That small step was the first of a long journey.

Perper next tackled lighting, knowing great savings could be reaped by switching to the then-new technology of LEDs.

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"I thought, wow, this could really be a powerful tool to reduce energy consumption. It's not 10 percent (savings), it's more like 50 to 90 percent," said Perper. After evaluating the real-life savings LEDs then brought to his operation, it gave him the confidence to pursue additional projects.

Recycling was next on the list.

"I started to look at some of the other habits we had around the business and realized some of these could be changed without affecting our lives," he said, noting the significant bottle and can waste at the bar.

Would bowlers throw empty beer bottles into a recycling bin? The only way to know was to offer the bins and find out. Sure enough, the practice residents get at home carries over to the outside world. Recycling is now the new normal throughout Playdrome.

Perper next wanted to divert some of the waste the center produced. Pizza boxes were piling up in the dumpster, and weren't recyclable since some had food waste on them. Undaunted, he worked with his waste management vendor, Republic Services, and they agreed to a trial run, noting if there were any complaints from the processing plant, the boxes would go back to being trash.

A year later and no complaints means Perper has spared a vast volume of paper waste, otherwise destined for landfills.

The bowling boss made sure to include his employees in the process, asking for input of ideas that would reduce the facility's impact on the environment. It's a perpetual process, but other changes include abandoning bathroom paper towels in favor of warm-air hand dryers, a reduction in disposable foam products, and greening the back office operation.

"You just keep chipping away at every area, don't do it all at once, and it brings you closer to the goal," Perper said, noting the two-fold benefit of preserving the environment while saving the business a wasteful expense.

A still larger project is in the works: solar. Playdrome is slated for a photovoltaic installation Perper anticipates will offset 75 percent of their electricity consumption.

And given the LED's success in his bowling business, Perper took his passion for energy reduction to its logical conclusion, and founded his own wholesale supply company, ZLED Lighting.

In between running multiple businesses, Perper makes a concerted effort to help other businesses get started with energy-saving initiatives the same way he got started. He aids fellow members of the trade association Bowling Proprietors' Association of America in enacting similar upgrades to their operations.

And he engages community members at the municipal level. His efforts helped in developing a Green Business Sustainability Template—a comprehensive checklist any business owner can work from to get started in greening theirs. It will be distributed throughout the Cherry Hill business community as a means to spread the good word of energy reduction.

To that end, he'll be hosting a bowling promo on behalf of the It's In Our Power group—the township's state-partnered organization that educates and promotes energy-efficiency practices. They'll be collecting pledges from residents, indicating that resident's commitment to pursue a variety of energy-saving projects in their own lives. The event is March 10-11, and open to all.

Though Perper is just one business owner, he has a refreshing outlook on the impact a single individual can make when it comes to achieving sustainability.

"It's a game of inches. You make changes, little by little," he said. "And if everybody changes their ways, the whole ship will turn."

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