Category Archives: Waste Stream

Tale of the Tape II–Split Decision

Let’s look at another figure from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) study. The ESRC study counts 17 million tonnes of British food waste annually. Fareshare, the national charity that redistributes excess food, says almost one-fourth of that is perfectly edible when it’s thrown away. To subtract the ‘es’ from 17 million tonnes, we multiply a bit to arrive […]

June 20, 2007 | Also posted in International, Stats | Comments closed

Tale of the Tape

Last week, Britain’s Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) released a study called Consumption: Reducing, Reusing and Recycling. Because I’m slow at math, I’m just now pondering its import. My first instinct is to compare Britons’ food waste to ours. The ESRC study reports that the “Every year British consumers each waste £424 on food they do not […]

June 19, 2007 | Also posted in International, Stats | Comments closed

Pop Quiz

           OK, What am I holding? (click photo to enlarge)                     Here’s a hint: It was a food item.    Give up?  Click here for the answer.  Plus, you can view more pictures here.    

June 15, 2007 | Posted in Waste Stream | Comments closed

Replate: first-rate or not so great?

A bunch of San Francisco “troublemakers who make good things happen in culture and commerce” are drawing much-needed attention to food waste. Language in Common recently launched a fascinating web campaign urging people to leave their unwanted doggie bags atop trash cans for hungry folks to eat. Essentially, they’ve taken an observed behavior and made it a verb: Replate. Hmm… Five things I […]

June 14, 2007 | Also posted in Food Recovery, Food Safety | Comments closed

Curry to Kilowatts

Food-to-energy schemes are fairly common around the globe. In the U.S., however, there are few anaerobic digesters that break down food waste and harness the gas released to power a generator.  The latest story to cross my desk is a company called Biotech, based in the South Indian state of Kerala. The company has made digesters for […]

June 11, 2007 | Also posted in Energy, International | Comments closed

Britain Talks Trash II

I’ve been reading some of the fine print on the Waste Strategy for England 2007 and there’s more than meets the eye. In addition to incentives for businesses to compost, the waste plan includes annual increases of the per tonne landfill tax so that it doubles by 2011. We’re seeing both the carrot and the stick. As this […]

June 1, 2007 | Also posted in International | Comments closed

Britain Talks Trash

Britain’s Environment Secretary David Miliband published a waste plan for England last week. I’m just now getting around to writing about the strategy because I’ve been stunned by how much sense it makes. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) plan calls for a 45 percent reduction in waste produced and for 50 percent of all […]

May 31, 2007 | Also posted in International | Comments closed