Monthly Archives: August 2011

Mr. Potato Head(s)

This Saturday at the super duper Durham Farmer’s Market, I volunteered with Farmer Foodshare. This innovative program collects donations of food from farmers and edibles or currency from shoppers. Volunteers take the donated money and buy produce from the local growers (win-win-win!). Anyway, we try to stretch the money to get as much food as we can for […]

August 29, 2011 | Posted in General | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

In a town near Vancouver, curbside compost collection is attracting bears, which, sadly, usually doesn’t end well for bears. Mixing newspaper in with the compost or keeping food scraps in the freezer before collection are two suggested solutions… — — The Stop Food Waste campaign run by the Irish EPA found that 30% of what Irish […]

August 26, 2011 | Posted in Composting, Energy, International | Comments closed

Double the Waste?

This summer’s new school lunch guidelines that accompanied the updated federal food icon–MyPlate–push for larger portions of fruit and vegetables. Sounds great, right? There’s only one problem: fruit and vegetables are already the most wasted items in school lunches. Serving more of them to each student will only mean more food in the trash. Cue […]

August 22, 2011 | Posted in General | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

A chocolate-powered Nestle plant? That delightful smell and scheme could be coming soon to Newcastle, England. — — The Chicago Sun-Times ran this great piece on whole-hog butchery as a way to avoid waste. The worst detail: some whole hams head straight to the trash because they’re not in as high demand as pork chops and bacon. — — […]

August 19, 2011 | Posted in International, Restaurant | Comments closed

Unnecessary Hunger

Famine x Waste = Terrible Well worth a read: This thought-provoking piece on how famine in East Africa is made all the more absurd by the waste in that region. Shrinking prices lead to no market for some crops. And because there is so little irrigation in use, a draught worsens the situation. But, as […]

August 15, 2011 | Posted in Hunger, International | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

Portland City Council will vote next week on whether or not to make curbside composting a citywide program (and reduce regular trash collection to every other week). Come on Stumptown, both Salem and Keizer (Oregon) have such a program! — — Connecticut’s governor just signed a bill requiring composting for businesses producing more than 104 […]

August 12, 2011 | Posted in Composting, Friday Buffet, Hunger, International | Comments closed

Dive! Giveaway

The kind folks at First Run Features have given me three copies of the dumpster diving documentary Dive! to pass along to you fine readers. Lucky you! I’m sure you’ll enjoy the film, as Dive! uses honesty and humor to illustrate the extent of retail food waste. We see director Jeremy Seifert and his freegan friends […]

August 10, 2011 | Posted in Freegan, Supermarket | Comments closed

Follow That Trash!

Because we could all stand to learn a little more about where our trash goes… (In other words, about landfills)

August 8, 2011 | Posted in Waste Stream | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

Here’s an interesting look into how a composting company (in this case, EcoScraps) comes to be. — — The ValuWaste system helped Iowa hospitals save some serious cash from avoided waste. As in hundreds of thousands of dollars annually. — — Rolling Stone(!) had a brief, not-so-timely news blurb about the finding that one-third of […]

August 5, 2011 | Posted in Composting, Friday Buffet, Household, Institutional | Comments closed

Diving In

CNN just ran this in-depth piece on the just-released documentary Dive! It includes some new commentary from director/dumpster-diver-in-chief Jeremy Seifert. A large chunk of the film centers on Trader Joe’s food tossing and Seifert’s crew’s reclamation of those perfectly edible, gourmet items. That led to a Change.org petition telling Trader Joe’s to stop wasting food. […]

August 3, 2011 | Posted in General | Comments closed