Monthly Archives: March 2009

Recession Concessions

Sometimes a little belt tightening is healthy. Lord knows we’ve had our national belt on pretty loosely these last few decades. The economic downturn might help by forcing businesses and individuals to examine their habits. This USA Today piece on hotel budget trimming had this tidbit buried toward the end: When [the] Hilton Anaheim anticipates […]

March 17, 2009 | Posted in Composting, General, Supermarket, Waste Stream | Comments closed

Recyclemania Reduction Rant

It’s mid-March, which means it’s time for the ultimate collegiate competition. No, not the NCAA Tournament, RecycleMania! That also means it’s time for my annual RecycleMania rant! The college recycling competition, which began 2001 under the auspices of the National Recycling Coalition, is generally a very positive undertaking. But, the “targeted materials” category of “food service […]

March 16, 2009 | Posted in College, Composting, General | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

Eureka! Folks in that California town are thinking about installing a digester to turn food waste to energy. — — Word out of England is that some pols want to ban “buy one, get one free” deals. The Liberal-Democrats’ rationale is that stores are luring people to buy more food than they need, causing unnecessary […]

March 13, 2009 | Posted in Food Safety, Friday Buffet, International, Supermarket, Tree Gleaning | Comments closed

Down the Drain, in a good way(?)

If I told you that hotels and restaurants could convert their food waste to a down-the-drain liquid in 24 hours, would that interest you? BioHitech America’s high volume organic waste decomposition system can do just that. Apparently, you dump all of your food waste into the stainless steel contraption (which comes in three sizes and […]

March 12, 2009 | Posted in Environment, Waste Stream | Comments closed

Ripe for the Picking

A little while back, the San Francisco Chronicle ran a dense, fabulous article on foraging for food. In it, tree gleaning takes center stage, with olives, walnuts and oranges literally up for grabs. It’s nice to see some people making use of the edibles available around them. Talk about eating local! The central character of […]

March 11, 2009 | Posted in Food Recovery, Tree Gleaning | Comments closed

Eating Down the Mountain

“Eating Down the Fridge” has a literary ring to it, kind of like that old kids book Sing Down the Moon. More importantly, it’s the name of a challenge issued by The Washington Post‘s Kim O’Donnel. The deal: don’t buy groceries for a week, instead living off what you have in the house. From where […]

March 10, 2009 | Posted in Household | Comments closed

A Splendid Show

I caught The Splendid Table this week, an unusual thing for me. I was glad I did, as the radio show had a few Wasted Food-related scraps. In this great feature on Tater Tots, we learn that Ore-Ida created potato puffs as a way to put spud scraps to use. Now, the potato castaways that […]

March 9, 2009 | Posted in Household, School | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

Seven-Eleven stores in Japan are not allowed to discount food near expiration dates/times–essentially mandated to waste food. — — At U.S. bases in Iraq, food waste in Iraq is tossed and burned along with everything else. We can do better, says Army infantry captain Timothy Hsia in a Times op-ed. — — In addition to […]

March 6, 2009 | Posted in College, Events, Food Recovery, Hunger, Institutional, School | Comments closed

War on Waste, junior edition

I’m sure we could all use a heart-warming story these days. Right on cue, students at Otto Petersen Elementary in Scappoose, Ore., are determined to reduce food waste. More specifically, one fourth-grade class challenged the sixth-grade class to see who could waste less. They also set out to reduce paper and plastic waste, with the […]

March 5, 2009 | Posted in Composting, School | Comments closed

When Grandmas Go Green

What’s not to love about The Green Granny? While I’d rather eat my grandmas’ cooking than this “green” dish, this GG has noble goals. If you take your grannies soothing, English and environmental, sit back and enjoy: The video is part of Oxfam’s 4-a-week campaign, which suggests four actions we can take to help those […]

March 4, 2009 | Posted in Environment, Household, International | Comments closed