U.K. A.D.

Anaerobic digestion getting a boost in Britain. The recycling advocate WRAP has pushed for the widespread adoption of the process that converts food waste (and anything organic) into energy.

WRAP, or Waste & Resources Action Programme, has called for the installation of more digesters to process excess food. use of the process. It is now running trials in conjunction with 17 localities.

Increased anaerobic digestion fits in well with the 2007 Waste Strategy for England put out by the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs(DEFRA). Here’s David Miliband MP, the former head of DEFRA and current Foreign Secretary, on the matter:

With anaerobic digestion, we are progressing with due speed so we can make progress in that area.

There’s only one digester processing food waste in the U.S.–in Davis, Calif.–and it’s temporarily down. There are also a few ongoing experiments around the nation. With energy dominating much of the environmental debate, expect to hear more about anaerobic digestion in the near future–both on this site and elsewhere.

July 26, 2007 | Posted in Energy, International, Waste Stream | Comments closed

Waikiki Worms

Every restaurant, not matter how careful, produces some food waste. Sometimes it originates in the kitchen due to overordering, overpreparing or the inevitable peels and scraps. Often, it comes from the dining room, where diners return half-eaten plates.

One way or another, restaurant dumpsters end up full of wet, heavy organic waste. Some of it was edible when discarded (as freegans well know), some not. All of it, however, has value. It’s a resource that can be tapped through composting, worm composting or anaerobic digestion.

I recently read about a vermiculture, or worm composting, company called Waikiki Worms. The Hawaii business provides a nice example of how restaurants (and homeowners–check out the Can-O-Worms) can reap value from their food waste. While I’ll admit that their location gives their work a certain appeal, Waikiki Worms provides a model for spreading the vermiculture near and wide, from restaurants to schools.

OK, I’ll admit that their logo is pretty catchy, too. Especially how one worm is “composting” its own grass skirt. My day has been made. 
waikiki-worms.jpg

July 25, 2007 | Posted in Composting, Restaurant, Waste Stream | Comments closed

Containing Compost

With Seattle’s mandatory food waste recycling a scant 20 months away, folks there have begun to contemplate how to store their food scraps in the kitchen before curbside dumping. In other words, what kind of container works best.

This problem isn’t unique to Seattle’s single family homes (the ones forced to compost in 2009). Home composters of all levels and locales face the same question. As a rookie composter, I haven’t settled on how to store my kitchen scraps before transferring them to my outdoor bin. I’ve been using a jumbo yogurt container, but it fills rapidly.

There are certainly plenty of options for sale on the Web. Yet, this review of food scrap storage options is useful for those on a budget. It’ll get you thinking and, for better or worse, is written by someone not afraid to call food waste ‘gross.’

Don’t hesitate to comment if you’ve had success with a certain kind of container. Or maybe if you haven’t!

July 24, 2007 | Posted in Household, Waste Stream | Comments closed

Seattle Separation

Seattle’s City Council passed an ordinance Monday requiring all single family homes to recycle their food scraps by 2009. I’m a bit late on this due to my vacation, but what kind of food waste blogger would I be if I didn’t pass along this news?

My friends at The Seattle Times have all the details covered. And here’s one columnist’s take on it. Reaction in the blogosphere ranges from semi-cynical to cynical.  

While the ordinance is a positive step for food waste diversion, I find it odd that residents will be forced to pay for the service (which exists now but is voluntary). Even more puzzling: why businesses, which produce double the food waste of households, won’t also be required to separate their scraps.

Seattle has an aggressive goal of diverting 72 percent of its trash from landfills by 2025. If that’s the case, why not go after the biggest targets first? Help me out, here.

July 23, 2007 | Posted in Household, Waste Stream | Comments closed

R & R

I’ll be on vacation this week and won’t be posting. The beach rental where I’ll be staying doesn’t have Web access–a blessing and a curse–so I suppose I’ll have get some sun.

Just know that I’ll be doing my best to finish off others’ hamburgers and hot dogs. Anything in the name of avoiding food waste.  

Before I go, I was a bit chuffed to see this article in the Seattle Times. While I’m blushing at the phrase “expert,” I enjoyed the piece. For those without food scrap pickup or unable to compost, I’ll post some tips next week on how to avoid squandering food.

Until then…keep saving those leftovers.

July 15, 2007 | Posted in General | Comments closed

British food waste awaits

London borough leaders seem to be considering food waste collection. At an event organized by London Remade, a non-profit recycling consulting firm, London officials heard from the recycling coordinator of Preston, where 7,500 homes take part in household composting scheme, urged London to “jump in.”

Here, here. We all know there’s plenty of bad English food just waiting to be composted. If L-town officials are worried about how food recycling would work on a large scale, they can call up San Francisco’s food waste division.

And there’s certainly vast amounts of food waste to be collected. Just ask London Remade chief executive Daniel Silverstone:

London households produce around 1.3 million tonnes of food waste a year and [London has] half of England’s restaurants – and almost all of this waste ends up in landfill.   

Finally, while we’re talking UK, I found this tidbit on the Web site of upscale British retailer Marks & Spencer interesting:

There is a delicate balance between providing our customers with the widest possible range of foods everyday, and minimising waste: too little and the customer is faced with empty shelves, too much and the bins are full and profit margins low. We have donated unsold food direct to local charities since the late 1960s when we first started selling a wider range of foods in our stores. We donate the equivalent of a quarter of a million carrier bags of unsold food – that’s 1,200 tonnes every year – to various charities. We also sell food at discounted prices to employees.

Discounted sales to employees–now that’s an interesting idea. You mean we shouldn’t just throw away those bags of lettuce because their package date says it should be sold by today?

July 13, 2007 | Posted in Household, International | Comments closed

Fancy Waste II

Yesterday’s post raised the question of whether Fancy Food Shows in different cities (there are three every year) donate their considerable amount of surplus food. Here’s a quick follow-up:

The short answer is yes. The National Association for the Specialty Food Trades (NASFT), which organizes the Fancy Food Shows, coordinates donations at their events in Chicago (every spring) and the West Coast (every winter). The Greater Chicago Food Depository, Chicago’s food bank, recovers the leftovers from the annual Spring Fancy Food Show. Last year, they rescued 12,000 pounds of specialty foods.

At this winter’s San Francisco event, unopened non-perishables went to Under One Roof. The organization sold the items in its retail space, with 100% of the profits going directly to AIDS agencies. St. Anthony’s Dining Room, which serves free meals to poor and homeless San Franciscans, collected more than 18,000 pounds of perishable foods from the same show.

While the first Fancy Food Show was held in 1955, it only began donating 18 yrs ago. The amount of food recovered, though, seems to be increasing. In 2006, New York’s City Harvest got 106,100 pounds. This year, 122,700 pounds went to more than 500 agencies in New York City. That’s a lot of fancy food not wasted!

July 12, 2007 | Posted in Food Recovery | Comments closed

Fancy Waste

The annual summer Fancy Food Show at New York’s Javits Center ended yesterday at 4 p.m. About five hours later, two tractor trailers full of perishables had been picked up and four more trailer loads of dry goods were collected this morning. Who were those masked food rescuers that made it happen? City Harvest.

As you can see, the Fancy Food Show had a wide variety of food on display. From pistachio-studded salami to sweet corn ice cream, New York’s hungry will receive a well-deserved bite of fanciness today. And there’s plenty of it to go around, as City Harvest recovered more than 120,000 pounds of food.

At its end, City Harvest’s 300 volunteers “were swarming, looking for perishables like big hunks of mozzarella and premium cuts of meat,” said Jennifer McLean, City Harvest’s V.P. of Operations. After that, the worker bees boxed and wrapped non-perishable items for this morning’s pick up.

“Time is money in this world. The vendors don’t want to throw their goods away, but they’ve gotta move on to the next show,” said McLean. “If we didn’t pick it up, the food would be pilfered a bit by the Javits Center people, but the majority of it wouldn’t get saved.”

What I’m trying to figure out now is whether exposition food recovery happens elsewhere. As I wrote previously, there’s some food recovery from events at Boston’s Convention Center. And the Greater Chicago Food Depository rescues food from the annual spring Fancy Food Show and other events at McCormick Place. Stay tuned for more sightings of caped food rescuers in action… 

July 11, 2007 | Posted in Food Recovery | Comments closed

Festival Food Waste

This past weekend I dug through the trash. To be more specific, I volunteered to help a local festival compost their organic waste. While this year’s numbers won’t be in for a week or two, the festival diverted 93 percent of the trash from the landfill in 2006. 

Here’s how my three-hour shift went: organizers dropped off bags of compostable materials. We weighed the clear bags, then spread their contents–food waste, paper goods and compostable cutlery–on a blue tarp to remove all noncompostables. After pulling out tin foil and non-biodegradable fast food cups, we emptied the tarp into a dumpster to be collected by a commercial composter.

As I helped the festival approach its zero waste goal, I got a glimpse into consumption habits. After all, it’s not every day one gets the chance to dig through food waste that hasn’t begun to smell. While I realize this isn’t an activity most folks would choose, I think you’re all underestimating its voyeuristic appeal.

What did I learn? What every parent already knows—that kids can be finicky eaters. I saw many watermelon slices ($1) missing just one or two puny bites. There were almost as many pretzel remains. And I hope it was a youngster that ate just the “corn” and not the dog, leaving a batter-less hot dog on a stick.

I also found that some festival food isn’t as appealing as it looks. Many fresh-made potato chips, half-eaten corn dogs and, oh yes, those turkey legs, littered the compost. As one long-time volunteer said, “In about a half hour you’ll start to see the turkey legs. They’ll usually have about one bite taken out of ‘em. I think they look and smell better than they taste.”

The saddest sight of the day–an entire bucket melted ice cream (I’d guess cookies ‘n cream) emptied into the dumpster. The vendor’s freezer was acting up, but still! Ever hear of a milkshake??

July 10, 2007 | Posted in Events | Comments closed

Experimenting with the EsmoSphere

I recently wrote about the EsmoSphere food preservation magnet that can slow food waste. Since its kind Singaporean manufacturers sent me a sample, the least I could do is test it out and share the results.

Since I received the seafood model, I decided to assess it with the sea life I cook most often: shrimp.

At the seafood counter, I had the clerk put 1/3 pound shrimp in two separate bags. Using standard food-magnet testing equipment (OK, desk dividers), I rigged up the crisper drawer so that the electromagnetic field would affect the test shrimp, but not the control shrimp in the other drawer with the carrots and cucumbers. It was all very scientific; all that was missing was the white lab coat (will a bathrobe suffice?).

Four days later (the high end of the recommended test period), the regular shrimp had experienced some serious water loss as they started to break down. By comparison, the EsmoSphere-aided shrimp looked better. Outside of their bags, the EsmoSphere shrimp also looked a little better than the control.

I decided to cook them to see if I could taste a difference, and because we wouldn’t want to waste food! I boiled them in identical pots for 3 minutes and then examined the results. I didn’t notice a difference, aside from that black mark that many shrimp have.

As for the texture, the EsmoSphere shrimp were definitely a little firmer and had a little more snap to them. Both varieties tasted good, however. I guess the lesson here is that I’m such an amazing cook I don’t need an EsmoSphere. Or maybe that the EsmoSphere works moderately well.

July 9, 2007 | Posted in Food Safety, Household | Comments closed