Keep Pickens Beautiful is proud to award the December Green Ribbon to Bigun’s Barbeque. The Green Ribbon recognizes community members who are making extraordinary efforts to beautify Pickens County and reduce their environmental impact.
Bigun’s Barbeque, located in Talking Rock at the intersection of Carnes Mill Road and Highway 515, has been serving their ‘Nearly World Famous Que’ to the Pickens community since 2008. Stop by to enjoy their delicious hickory smoked meats, including pork, brisket, baby back ribs, chicken, and turkey. They also offer a wide range of savory sauces and many side items, including cooked-to-order fried apple pies.
Bigun’s has been an Adopt-A-Road volunteer with Keep Pickens Beautiful since 2016. Their employee, Denny Oliver, has done an amazing job keeping the roadsides near their restaurant clean. This helps to maintain a pleasant environment for their customers and neighbors, but also helps keep trash out of our local waterways; Bigun’s is located just up the hill from Talona Creek.
In addition to Adopt-A-Road, the Bigun’s team has become a recycling leader in Pickens County. Their staff of 60 has learned what’s recyclable and how to sort it for our local center, so all employees, from the front to back, are helping. This year, they have been able to reduce their trash by one dumpster because of the volume they now recycle. That is a huge amount of waste being diverted from the landfills.
Bigun’s is very conscious of the environmental impact of doing business, particularly in our global economy, and works hard to mitigate what they can. For example, they use styrofoam because they are on a septic system which wouldn’t support the volume of water they’d need to wash all the dishes used by their customers, so they recycle all they can to help offset that use. This is an excellent example of how the Bigun’s crew is trying to help.
According to the Harvard Business School, globalization “opens businesses up to new markets in which they can sell goods and source labor, raw materials, and components.” However, this means that “products travel farther now than ever before – potentially halfway around the globe. This increased transport of goods can impact the environment in several ways.” Increased emissions, habitat loss, and natural resource overuse are all potential effects of our global market, so it’s up to each of us to do what we can to help. Thank you to Bigun’s for making the effort to do your part.
Bigun’s Barbeque recycles all they can, including cardboard, plastic, paper, and metal. They recycle more than 100 natural plastic jugs per week. That includes all their ketchup, gallon butter containers, and fryer oil jugs. According to the Pickens Recycling Center, #2 plastic has the highest demand and is the most needed recycling material.
In addition to recycling at the restaurant, now many of their employees are recycling at home. This demonstrates how recycling is contagious; their staff has seen the effect recycling has on trash volume, so they have embraced the practice in their home life. If we each do our part to help reduce our environmental impact and beautify our community, we’ll affect big change.
Keep Pickens Beautiful thanks Bigun’s Barbeque and their team for being a positive catalyst in our community. KPB is honored to award them the Green Ribbon for December 2021.
If you have a nominee for a future Green Award, or if you would like to help, contact Keep Pickens Beautiful. KPB has been serving Pickens County since 1989 through various projects and initiatives with an emphasis on recycling, beautification, and education. A primary focus of KPB is to work collaboratively with local residents and businesses, because “together, we can do so much” — Helen Keller. Contact KPB at KeepPickensBeautiful.org or swing by their office at the south end of Main Street Monday – Friday, 11 a.m. – 3 p.m.