This Republic of Squandering

Food Waste Republic (as in, the Republic of Singapore) is a fabulous new project from three journalism students from the Asian island city-state. The site examines many facets of food waste through many mediums.

There’s an engrossing audio slideshow from a wholesale market, where workers estimate that 30 percent of vegetables are thrown away. And these self-described muckrakers–two writers and one photographer–earn that term with some hidden-camera bakery action. They even do some garbage sorting and data creating.

One of the writers contacted me, and I was happy to add my opinion. But, to be honest, I never thought they’d come up with anything as interesting as they have.

image courtesy of Food Waste RepublicMy one complaint is that I’m not wild about the tone on the Food Waste Police page, which gives everyone the chance to “report a culprit” by submitting a photo of waste. Still, at least that tactic will raise awareness.

There’s really a whole lot to enjoy here. While many of the themes are universal, you’ll learn something about Singapore, too. The site skips from cultural practices to environmental concerns, which are made all the more significant by the fact that 95 percent of Singapore’s food is imported. That’s one of many reasons to reduce waste.

April 12, 2010 | Posted in International | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

Bleaching food so humans don’t eat it has to be some sort of sin, right? Thoughts?

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Wow, I didn’t realize food was the largest portion of California’s waste stream. Nationally, it’s paper. Probably speaks to Californians’ success at recycling paper…and their lackthereof in reducing food waste.

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Talk about a candidate for most misleading headline. Then again, it works if by ‘landfill,’ they mean ‘compost.’

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General Mills will soon power a plant with a biomass steam boiler that burns spent hulled oats used to make their cereal. Hey, wait, Hall and Oates weren’t that bad!


Well, maybe…

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Not food waste, but still: ConAgra says it plans to reduce packaging waste by 2015. Because, after all, what’s the rush?

April 9, 2010 | Posted in Energy, Friday Buffet, International | Comments closed

Growing Compost

When your favorite food recovery operation hosts America’s favorite urban farming/vermiculture advocate, you go. Last night, Inter-Faith Food Shuttle hosted Will Allen, who spoke about the operations at the sustainable, renewable, local, urban, awesome Milwaukee headquarters at Growing Power.

Tuesday's eventThe event served as a kick-off for a community garden at a non-profit medical center. As you can see, the garden is coming right along. We got to inspect the rows of lettuce, marvel at the beautiful chard.

IFFS Farm Director Sun Butler gave a worm-bin demonstration. And graduates of the organization’s culinary job training program, provided the evening’s refreshments.

Allen’s talk followed, and it was inspiring to see what can be done on 3 acres of Milwaukee land. Row crops, potted plants, aquaculture, composting, vermiculture, solar energy, anaerobic digestion…it boggles a food waste blogger’s mind.

It’s all about the soil, Allen stressed. He talked a whole lot about composting and using worms to create compost tea. The guy clearly loves his worms, which he called “our livestock.” While Allen began with 30 pounds of red wigglers, his brood now weighs 30,000!

And you can’t have that many worms without something to feed them. Allen said that Growing Power accepted 10 million pounds of food waste in 2009 to compost, with and without worms. Yet, he called that a “drop in the bucket in a city like Milwaukee.” That’s a big bucket.

April 7, 2010 | Posted in Composting, Farm, Food Recovery, Vermiculture | Comments closed

Ch-Ch-Chain of Waste

Our friends at WRAP just released a comprehensive study on UK food and drink waste throughout the supply chain. I know I sound like a broken record about WRAP, but the British semi-governmental agency keeps releasing important findings on waste. [Note: this research includes drink and packaging waste]

The study, which you can read in its entirety, found that British households create about 65 percent of the waste. By comparison, the manufacture of these items results in 27 percent of total waste.

That news is both good and bad. Good, because it means individuals like you and me can really impact food waste. Bad, because reducing food waste will be more of a piecemeal effort. If the numbers were reversed, a few wholesale changes in the food manufacturing industry would yield major changes, quickly.

Not surprisngly, the British press has started reporting on the findings. It’s always interesting to see the different takes. Sometimes the headlines are about the cost (£17 billion). Other times it’s the sheer amount of waste. And the first article discusses the environmental impact, too.

It must be so very useful to have such detailed data on food waste. Perhaps one day, we’ll have similar stuff in the ol’ U.S. of A. Perhaps.

April 5, 2010 | Posted in Household, International, Waste Stream | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

CBS’ The Early Show weighed in with some household tips for avoiding food waste. Awesome to see the networks (finally) finding the issue of food waste.

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I can’t really say anything about this Grist article (for reasons that will become clear), but you should read it! In case you’re confused, click one of the links in the piece…

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Good on Morrison’s for introducing changes to reduce waste in shoppers’ homes. But file this finding under ‘duh:’

Other research commissioned by Morrisons found 44 per cent of shoppers believed prolonging the life of fresh produce would help them waste less.

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Buried deep in this piece on Calif. school food waste: the estimate that $2 billion of tax dollars are squandered from children’s plate waste (under the National School Lunch Program).

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An ethnographic study of food waste in Manchester (UK)? I’m listening…

April 2, 2010 | Posted in Friday Buffet, International, School | Comments closed

A Different Passover Story

My wife, son and I were invited to a Passover seder at our friends’ house and were tasked with bringing a dessert or two.

I flipped through a Passover cookbook and decided on chocolate macaroons. It only had five ingredients, and macaroons are always the best Passover dessert. The recipe called for 3 egg whites, coconut, ground almonds, some sugar and chocolate. Keep that in mind.

As I kept flipping for an accompanying sweet, I came across this sentence under the walnut cookies:

This is a good way to use egg yolks left over from macaroons and meringues.

Bingo.

While an excess of egg yolks is a familiar Passover problem, it can occur at other times of the year (as meringue fans will attest). It raises an important point for any time one part of an egg or any food is requried: find a complimentary recipe. If you whites, you really should give this macaroon recipe a shot. 

The walnut cookies (nowhere near as good as the macaroons) called for 4 yolks. So that left me with an extra egg white. After a moment of strategizing, it promptly became the main portion ofsmile--it's lunchtime! my son’s lunch. [note–I rarely go the cute route with his foods, but couldn’t resist here].

One other tip: After years of being frustrated by egg whites’ refusal to let go and drop out of the egg separator, I found a decent solution. Snip the dangling strands of egg with a scissors.

March 31, 2010 | Posted in History and Culture, Household, Personal | Comments closed

Strawberry Fields–Not Forever

ABC News story that I alluded to on Friday ran on Saturday night. If you haven’t watched it, I’d say it’s worth your time.

First, I’m really glad to see network news coverage of food waste, as will raise awareness on the issue. Second, I had such a visceral aversion to seeing that worker chop up.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t terribly surprised by the report. Fruits and vegetables often aren’t picked when growers don’t feel they can get a price that justifies harvesting. Growers need to make a living and if the cost of harvesting a crop is greater than the return they’d get for selling it, they’re not going to harvest. Now, when they don’t harvest because they won’t make enough of a profit…

Either way, if farmers aren’t going to pick their crops, they really should invite gleaning groups to harvest them. If they fear a lawsuit for an injury, just get people to sign a simple waiver.

I wish ABC had focused more on the farm that invited all comers to take the crops they weren’t using, instead of just mentioning it at the end. The same kind of “free-for-all” event at a Colorado farm made news in 2008.

I was confused about why they were chopping them instead of just tilling them under. Wouldn’t it just be cheaper to just till them under? Since I’m not a strawberry grower–commercial or recreational–I’ll assume there’s a decent reason.

The timing of this segment was apt, as just today I bought Florida strawberries on sale at the market. Now I know why they were on special.

What did you think of the segment? And do farmers have any obligation to try to get food to those in need?

March 29, 2010 | Posted in Farm | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

Sunny sent a tip that ABC News will have a feature on food waste on Friday night. I’ll post a link when/if it’s online.

Update: the story ran on Saturday.

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Cheer up, Ivy Leaguers. Cornell’s NCAA tourney run may have ended, but at least Penn is composting its food waste (and reducing greenhouse gas emissions by the equivalent of taking 88,000 cars off the road).

The school’s composting is made easier by a new compost facility nearby in Wilmington, Del. As we discussed in the roundtable, the composting infrastructure–available composters and haulers–is a main barrier. But it’s coming along…

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Oh man. The city of London is now subsidizing food recovery?! The funding will keep food from the landfill, creating about 800,000 meals.

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Here’s a really in-depth profile of Ashley Stanley, the founder of Lovin’ Spoonfuls food recovery group, who just happens to hail from my hometown.

March 26, 2010 | Posted in Composting, Food Recovery, Friday Buffet, International | Comments closed

Roundtable Recap

Yesterday’s EPA-led food waste roundtable was nothing if not energizing. The whole idea was to get all food waste stakeholders into one room. Given that there were about 125 attendees, including retailers, food service reps, municipal solid waste, composters, consultants, researchers, anaerobic digestion vendors, EPA representatives and at least one blogger, it had to be a pretty big room.

As you can see, there wasn’t necessarily one giant round table, but many. The 4.5 hour event was mostly a guided discussion facilitated by the EPA’s Jean Scwab, who noted that the agency had The round table roomrecently updated their page on food waste.

The conversation slalomed through the opportunities and obstacles at each level of the Food Waste Recovery Hierarchy.We went from reducing waste to composting it. I was particularly pleased that we spent a good amount of time on the former.

The round table included a presentation from Walmart’s director of solid waste and recycling, Bobby Fanning. He detailed their efforts to reduce food waste throughout their stores, which was heartening. More significantly, Fanning said that the retailer had a goal of diverting all food waste from the landfill by the end of 2010. I was surprised by that, but shocked by his assertion that they were 80% there.

Another surprise was that there was not one representative from the USDA. And they were invited. That kind of says it all.

Finally, one of my suggestions was that we need an up-to-date, exhaustive study to assess just how much food we waste. I won’t be holding my breath for a new study any time soon, but after the positivity stemming from the event, you just never know!

March 25, 2010 | Posted in Composting, Environment, Events | Comments closed

Food Waste: On the Table

Today, I’ll be attending a round table on food waste, organized by the EPA. I’m excited at the prospect of having a meaningful discussion on a topic I find so important and fascinating. Also, that a federal agency is paying attention to wasted food.  

That said, I’m not entirely sure what to expect. Will there be an actual table at which we’ll sit? If yes, will I have a seat at it, and will it be round? If so, will there be knights there?

Here’s what I do know:

  • It’s in Crystal City, Virginia (right outside DC).
  • It’s part of this larger conference resource conservation. 
  • I’ll get to chat with the leading lights in the small world of waste reduction.

I’m hoping the talk focuses more on reducing food waste than on properly handling it, which is the more common discussion. Either way, I’ll let you know how it goes via my Twitter feed either during or after the half-day session.

If you’ll be there on Wednesday, come say hello. I look like the guy in the photo to the right, but with a beard.

March 24, 2010 | Posted in Events | Comments closed