I’ve often come across waste studies that estimate how much food isn’t eaten in a city or state. Since researchers aren’t sorting and weighing food waste at every home and restaurant, I often wonder how they come up with the estimates.
Now I have an answer. Page five of this 2002 Massachusetts food waste study lists […]

Expect some laid back composting at Jack Johnson’s Kokua Festival in Honolulu. While I’m diggin’ the concert’s sweet poster, all I can picture right now is Andy Samberg’s J.J. Casuals SNL faux-mercial.
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Might Massachusetts ban commercial food waste from landfills?
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In the wake of Harvard’s experiment to do away with trays (for four days), […]

How do I know this trayless dining hall thing is really taking off? Harvard is giving it a whirl.
As The Harvard Crimson reports, Quincy House will eliminate trays during Thursday dinners in February. While four nights isn’t a huge commitment, that hasn’t stopped students from complaining. To wit, this whiny lead:
The daily challenge of […]

The trayless college dining experiment is spreading and so are the media hits. An article in Inside Higher Ed about the practice led to a brief blog post on The Wall Street Journal’s site.
The Inside Higher Ed piece provided a nice detail to illustrate that some students, notably big eaters, oppose traylessness. Members of the […]

The trayless trend continues at college cafeterias…(who-hoo!)
As reported by its student newspaper, the University of Connecticut (UConn) will eschew trays at its Whitney Dining Hall in February. The environmental awareness campaign will begin with awareness day, then kick in the next Monday before running seven days the following week.
While the program’s main focus will be […]

I recently came across two seldom considered causes of food waste: electrical and mechanical.
Power outages, if they last long enough, can cause individuals and restaurants (small ones without a backup generator) to toss their perishables. As restaurants in Somerville, Mass., found out, this can be quite costly. In addition, the loss of food is wicked […]

Thought I’d pass along a few helpful household hints for minimizing waste. Thanks, Little Jelly’s Belly.
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On to one of my favorite topics: cafeteria traylessness. New York’s Morrisville State College is doing a Trayless on Tuesdays experiment in February.
If that’s not cool enough, they’re raffling off a Zune just for participating. Insert crotchety ‘when I […]

The Ball Sate University student paper had a behind-the-scenes look at college cafeteria dishwashing. In addition to making me want French toast sticks, the article provided this insight: 
Sophomore dishwasher Sara Morand, a chemistry and theater studies major, said students left waste constantly, especially unopened food, which the washers had to throw away.
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Sticking with college cafeterias, […]

At the beginning of most weeks, I give tips on how to avoid wasting food. Today we’ll talk about when ”best before” or “use by” dates can be ignored. 
My legal team advises me here that I should stipulate that I’m not a trained food scientist. True, but there are times when use-by dates are just silly. This article from […]

From Reed College to the National Review, we’re really spanning the political spectrum this week. The conservative magazine has pretty fair article on how the Federal School Lunch Program wastes food and money.
Wasted food costs the government $600 million every year, with fruits and vegetables accounting for 42 percent of that waste.
This G.A.O. report supplies those figures. […]