— —

UCSB has begun a student-led composting project. The best part is that students are the ones doing the sorting. While that means a lower food waste capture rate than when staff do the sorting, it ups the awareness quotient!

— —

Saving money by composting? A Montana food bank is doing just that by composting their own waste. Would that composting was always less expensive than using the landfill!

— —

Uh oh, some bad news from the UK: Grocers failed to meet their self-imposed food waste reduction goals. The British Retail Consortium announced the news in their progress report.

— —

How did I not know there was a Discard Studies blog before now? A recent post features a fabulous array of infographics, or “theaters of proof.” Enjoy the show.

— —

Smart phones can help ensure food safety? And potentially let you see the cow your milk came from? Smile, Bessie! Or Cow 8261.

— —

Compost, trash or disposal? Easy decision, right? Not so much, as we learn in this helpful flow chart.

— —

Dana Gunders at the NRDC blog considers how we’re composting $175 per year unnecessarily.

— —

UK retailer Marks & Spencer will soon carry new ethylene-absorbing packaging that will keep fruit fresh for a few more days. Because every little bit helps…

— —

Not to be outdone, British baked goods company Warburtons is making a push to make its supply chain less wasteful.

— —

A UK professor has the dirt on the EU’s strict standards for veggies.

— —

For those of you on Netflix–you can now instantly watch Dive! the quintessential American dumpster diving doc.

— —

No need for a caucus to determine that composting school food waste in Iowa makes sense!

— —

This article on Bon Appetit Management food waste minimization at Penn is music to my ears.

— —

Wish you had a sleek kitchen compost container? Now UCan.

— —

Finally, it’s nice to see the big boys like Waste Management getting more and more interested in composting.

— —

Statistics New Zealand just released some interesting…statistics on food waste. For example, produce makes up more than half of (capital K) Kiwi food waste. And 27% of the country composts–wow!

— —

A  partnership between Publix supermarkets and Waste Management has yielded a new composting facility in Florida. The Organics Recycling Facility in Okeechobee will turn food waste from 42 Publix stores into a useful soil amendment.

— —

This piece in The Hindu begins with this hammer blow:

Wasting food is a crime against humanity.

The rest of the story works, too, detailing food waste in India.

— —

Not sure about the viability of replicating this school without Titanic/Avatar money, but it’s pretty neat–a zero waste elementary school in Malibu. Sure, they’re composting. But what I really want to see is the campus falconer in action.

— —

Food waste = money waste. Heck, yeah!

— —

Quote of the week:

“It’s a really awesome substrate to be digesting, because it’s extremely energy-rich.”

– US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) spokesperson Laura Moreno on using anaerobic digestion on food waste at East Bay Municipal Utility District’s wastewater plant.

Not surprisingly, the United States owns ‘most wasteful nation’ status with food.  (Although I am confused by the data source…)

— —

In case you were curious, here’s what curbside composting looks like in Portland, with their tasteful brown kitchen caddies…

— —

Sticking in Oregon, here’s a heartening fruit tree gleaning tale, complete with some awesome images.

— —

It’s always great to hear about casinos composting what is sure to be a massive amount of wasted food. Delaware’s Dover Downs is the latest.

— —

On the down side, cost is a real barrier to composting in Illinois, despite a 2009 bill aimed at making the practice easier.

That study, much to my delight, lists the amount of wasted food as a major obstacle to sustainability. The report notes the juxtaposition of “a significant amount of edible food waste that is sent to landfills” with 17% of citizens being food insecure.

To address that incongruity, the report recommends creating a Food Waste Task Force to push diversion. That term includes promoting food recovery and composting to recover food’s nutrients, among other things.

The report also pushes for school gardens to teach children where their food comes from. And then there’s the suggestion of building regional meat and seafood processing plants, both of which could create energy from the waste byproducts they create.

The report is definitely worth a read, if for no other reason than to see how beneficial a regional food system can be. And when that plan incorporates food waste diversion, it’s all the more heartening.

— —

Exciting News: The NY Times Online reports that The Grocery Manufacturers Association is planning a three-year initiative to reduce the amount of food supermarkets waste. The effort–in conjunction with the Food Marketing Institute–will trim the amount of food we send to landfills, aiding hungry Americans instead.

— —

Is OPEC turning to food waste for fuel? Not that OPEC, but the Orange Peel Exploitation Company is exploring a technology developed at York University that microwaves food waste to create a fuel.

— —

Despite what some in Britain claim, the public strongly backs separate food waste collection (according to a recent poll).

— —

Finally, I’m on my way to Cape May to give a talk at Sunday’s Guess What’s Coming For Dinner event. See you there, perhaps…