Trashing the Earth

Earth Day is a good time to consider just how much we throw away–and not just food. We create 4.4 pounds of trash per day, which is pretty ridiculous.

This infographic conveys just how wasteful we are. And food waste’s impact is even greater than pictured, as the numbers represent the percentage of waste created, not what hits the landfill after recycling. Because less then 3 percent of food waste is recycled, food is about 20 percent (the largest component) of waste sent to the landfill.  Read More »

April 22, 2013 | Posted in Environment, Waste Stream | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

Wow, Reno must be the anti-Vegas! The Atlantis Casino there not only had a food waste diversion goal for 2012, the exceeded it by 56 percent!

— —

Don’t Judge a Fruit By Its Color, writes the Food Politic blog on HuffPost. The piece looks at government standards and our attitudes to get at this superficial food waste.

— —

I love it when two fabulous operations join forces! Food service provider Bon Appetit Management Co. and the Food Recovery Network have formed a partnership that will undoubtedly prevent plenty of college food waste by redistributing edible food to those in need.

— —

Speaking of college food recovery–well done, Wai Hon Chan and the rest of the food recovering crew at RIT.

— —

Finally, there aren’t many ideas as simple and sensible as making chutney from excess produce. The London org Rubies in the Rubble does just that. (And mangetout are snow peas)

April 19, 2013 | Posted in Casino, College, Farmers' Market, Food Recovery, Friday Buffet | Comments closed

Waste Weigh Friday

Last Friday, I helped oversee a cafeteria waste audit at Bucknell. It was my last day at the school and it was a nice culmination to a week of food waste awareness. It felt like a final exam–to gauge the impact of the week’s conversations, the posters in the cafeteria and a previous waste weigh.

Apparently, the message is spreading. The stats:

October waste audit: 1.5 ounce/student.

April waste audit: 1 ounce/student.

By my math, that’s a 33 percent reduction! Bravo, Bucknell!

Not to mention, that’s a low amount of waste per person per meal. Especially in an “all-you-can-eat” setting. Granted, this was during lunch, as both waste weighs were held from 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. on Friday.

Granted, the poundage would most likely be higher during dinner. But still, the improvement was the most encouraging and important aspect.

Friday’s waste weigh was a combined effort of several dedicated student volunteers, interested faculty members and Parkhurst Dining staff. My thanks to all involved, including the students for scraping their plate waste into the bin.

A few notable moments:

  • One guy (an international student, for what it’s worth) saying repeatedly that we should do this more often.
  • Another guy really not wanting to scrape his plate into the bin, saying a few times: “This is nasty!” Yep, and that’s part of the awareness raising.
  • Worst example of waste: A grapefruit peeled a tiny bit, but not eaten at all (see pic).
  • Silliest waste: 3 packets of individually wrapped crackers that had to be throw away because a student took them on their plate. Sometimes health code rules are just silly.

— —

*The official numbers:

October 2012: 1,017 ppl – 93 lbs – 1.5 oz per student

April 2013: 917 ppl – 55 lbs –  1 oz per student

April 15, 2013 | Posted in College, General, Personal, Worth a Thousand Words | Comments closed

(Almost) Zero Waste

As part of my visit to Bucknell University this week, I organized a Zero Waste Dinner for a group of interested students. The idea was to create a meal that would produce no waste of any kind–be it food, paper or plastic. In addition to enjoying what they cooked, teams of students were involved in the shopping, preparing, and cleaning.

At the planning meeting, we set the bar pretty high. In addition to no waste, we sought to make the meal as low-impact as possible. So that meant only cooking what was produced locally. And that, in turn, required a trip to the farmer’s market, which made it hard to plan ahead. The shopping team decided to play it by ear.

The Lewisburg Farmers’ Market is not a growers market, providing another challenge. At this time of year, the majority of food for sale there comes from other states. That prompted a series of discussions with farmers about what they’d grown or raised, a useful experience for anyone, let alone students who’d never been to a farmers’ market.

We found locally grown mushrooms, potatoes, brussels sprouts, and turnips to roast together (in some delicious local butter sold to us by a friendly Mennonite dairy farmer, together with herbs from a campus garden).

There were plenty of apples on offer, which we decided to convert to apple sauce. If time or local flour were plentiful, it would have been a pie. We did buy a few loaves of bread from a Mennonite bakery (whose flour may or may not have been local; the answer was hazy enough to interpret it in our favor). Buying a dozen cookies from that same bakery seemed like the right thing to do, and then we found some apple cider for the beverage.

Unfortunately, the students were not too enthusiastic about a meat-free meal. That created the most trouble, prompting this dilemma: local vs. zero waste. The students wanted to make chicken and the only kind available was bone-in or whole birds. This wouldn’t have been too much of a problem if there was compost pile on campus hot enough to process meat and bones, but there isn’t. And we couldn’t imagine any students making stock from bones (certainly not with finals coming up!).

As a result, we sought chicken with as few bones as possible. There was a stand that had boneless breasts, but they were sold out (Murphy’s Law!). So we opted for the next best thing, breasts with the ribs attached. It wouldn’t be an ultimately zero waste dinner, but it would be darn close.

Because we had a few people cancel, we decided not to cook all of the food we’d bought. We set aside a portion of all of the vegetables to donate to the local soup kitchen, Community Harvest.

The food prep went smoothly, albeit slowly. The chopping and cooking was not without its hiccups, but they were minor ones. A few students who claimed to be complete amateurs in the kitchen improved dramatically and we produced a respectable meal for 12 in about two hours.

We decided to serve buffet style to allow people to take the amount and foods they wanted. And I encouraged people to feel comfortable going back to get more. Before starting, we took a moment to think about all that had gone into creating our meal–the growers’ efforts, the chicken’s life, our time and energy, the environmental impact. And, I’d venture to guess, most of us were quite thankful for that dinner.

We ate slowly, mindfully, and then went back for seconds. The company and cider were enjoyed. New friends were made. Bellies were filled.

Next, Tupperware appeared. Leftovers were quickly divvied up–these are students after all–and dishes were washed. And then we brought to the compost bins at the campus garden that supplied the herbs. To top it all off, a huge lightning storm swept through as we were finishing up, illustrating the true power of a (nearly) zero waste meal.

 

April 12, 2013 | Posted in College, Personal, Waste Stream | Comments closed

Encouraging Signs

I’m back at Bucknell University for the third of four week-long stints as an expert-in-residence. I’ll be guest lecturing in a variety of classes, leading a zero waste dinner and facilitating a waste weigh.

I always relish the chance to discuss food waste with young folks–be it through giving talks, teaching or other. But perhaps the most exciting part of returning to campus was seeing food waste awareness signs stemming from a previous visit still on display in the cafeteria:

‘Ray Bucknell!

April 8, 2013 | Posted in College, Personal | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

The NRDC’s Switchboard blog provides a thought-provoking view on the latest thinking from British businesses on how to reduce food waste. And it all starts with a different mindset: that reducing food waste can yield increased revenue.

— —

On the topic of helping with the bottom line, free food waste reduction seminars would certainly help families. (As you lucky residents of Manchester, England are about to find out.)

— —

Congrats to the seven New England schools honored by the EPA for reducing food waste. I’m proud to be a New Englander, even if it was the New England EPA office doing the honoring…

— —

A recent phone survey on food waste in Taiwan (conducted by Commonwealth Magazine) yielded these staggering stats:

  • The money spent by the country’s 8 million local households on uneaten food each year can fund free lunches for all elementary schoolchildren in Taiwan for 39 years
  • While 80 percent see “throwing away food” as an “act of squandering money,” 32 percent would never take home uneaten food after dining at a restaurant.

Wow.

April 5, 2013 | Posted in College, Friday Buffet, International | Comments closed

Infographic: Food Waste to Fuel

While there’s plenty of interest in composting, there’s less activity around creating fuel from food waste. That’s largely because food waste-to-energy operations require higher investment at first. Yet in the long term, creating energy from our excess may be more environmentally beneficial according to the EPA (under “industrial uses”).

On that topic, RWL Water Group just released this handy infographic. And since I’m a sucker for a good infographic, here goes:

April 3, 2013 | Posted in Composting, Energy | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

Love this idea: a Love Your Leftovers site from the UN Environmental Programme. Add your favorite leftovers recipe to the site and you might win a prize and/or become web-famous.

— —

The Iowa Senate passed an interesting bill on Wednesday that would require the state to promote food waste reduction and recovery. The Des Moines Register says the bill is unlikely to pass the House, but here’s a chance to write or call your local representative, Iowans! Did I mention the bill was proposed by three youngsters ages 11 to 13?!

— —

The glass is pretty much half-full in Portland. The city hasn’t been able to find a home for a local composting facility, so commercial food waste will be split between four sites. But, they are still composting. Here’s the glass-half-empty view, though.

— —

Finally, it’s great to see Aljazeera adding to the attention on food waste. They report that global food waste could feed billions and comes at a cost of roughly $1 Trillion for the developed and developing world combined.

March 29, 2013 | Posted in Composting, Friday Buffet, International, Leftovers | Comments closed

Besmirching a Good Samaritan?

A recent L.A. Times piece on the legality of restaurant donations made me wonder a bit about the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act–you know, that 1996 federal shield law that protects donors from liability when they donate food that they deem to be in good shape.

In the article, Shirley Wei Sher, a member of the Southern California Chinese Lawyers Association, wanted to avoid what happened in past years–dumping food that could feed 100 people being thrown out. Yet, Sher was surprised when a local mission said they couldn’t take the leftovers.

As any lawyer would, Sher investigated the Good Sam Law, and found that the local health code was the main barrier to donation. And rightly so, given the priority of keeping people healthy. So food must be kept at the right temperature and nothing self-served can be donated (for cross-contamination fears–in case the Sesame Noodles spoon doesn’t end up in the Kung Pao).

image courtesy of @EdSmith1989

But the article, and, possibly, many of its sources, seem a bit mistaken in their take. It’s not that the local rules supersede federal law, but that the local health code conditions must be met in order for that federal liability protection to kick in.

Listen–I’m all for saving restaurant leftovers. And when we’re taking them for ourselves, there aren’t these limitations. But when giving food to others, precautions like local health regulations must be followed.

That doesn’t mean that the SCCLA can’t donate food. In fact, here are two solutions that should appease Sher, the recipient agency and the hosting restaurant:

1. Have staff serve plated meals and allow guests to ask for more. Then the group can donate prepared but unserved leftovers.

2. Have staff serve people in a buffet line and donate the leftovers.

 

March 25, 2013 | Posted in Food Safety, Restaurant | Comments closed

Don’t Judge a Book by its Cover

Here’s a quick reminder (in the most basic terms):

See apple.

See rotten spot.

Cut away rotten spot.

See spot gone.

Enjoy apple!

March 20, 2013 | Posted in General | Comments closed