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Nice to see public funds going toward a Love Food, Hate Waste Campaign…in Australia.

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It’s interesting to get a waste hauler’s perspective on greening events and composting.

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Finally, I gotta give my pal Ashley (of Lovin’ Spoonfuls) her props because she’s a one-woman food recovering machine:

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At Tuesday’s All-Star Game in Phoenix, stadium operators will collect and compost food waste.

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The other NRA–the National Restaurant Association–is taking on food court waste. Both at malls and airports!

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A neat idea from a SUNY researcher: Feeding cafeteria food waste to raise fish, then using fish poop to fertilize lettuce. No word yet on whether the lettuce is then served to students, who’d surely decline, sending it back to the fish.

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As the playoffs are in full swing, the NHL is still recovering food league-wide. And still getting EPA recognition.

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NYC and composting: Not a Love a Story

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My Fridge Food is pretty useful if you’re trying to eat down the fridge.

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This column in the Contra Costa Times on how residences are better than businesses at composting. Come on businesses–keep up!

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OK, Jason Schwartzman, that’s a pretty painless way to learn about CAFOs. I thought for sure Meatless Monday was gonna get a little love at the end, though.

Wasted Food: How did the NHL food recovery program come to exist?
Bernadette Mansur: The fellow who heads Rock and Wrap It Up, the food recovery program, Syd Mandelbaum, has been recovering food from arenas with different sports and clubs. He came in through a recommendation to one of the executives in the league. Because it was food donation and something that would be in the community, it was referred to me.

So I brought Syd in to meet [commissioner] Gary [Bettman] and the same thing happened. To get untouched but prepared food to homeless shelters was simply the right thing to do. And the way they do it is failsafe. They vet the shelters to make sure they have all their bases covered.

Gary then presented the idea to the owners at the June 2010 board meeting. And at that meeting, he gave the presentation and said let’s vote. It took about 20 seconds before everyone in the room raised their hands. It was a very simple decision to make. And then we found that nine of our clubs were already doing it!

How does the food recovery work, in practice?
The Concessionaires have these big carts and they go from stand to stand and pick up the unsold, untouched foods. They bring it to the loading platforms at the stadia. The shelter is responsible for picking up the food. That alleviates the issue of having the club or concessionaires drive it to the shelters. One of the questions that came up in the board meeting was on the Good Samaritan Act passed in the Clinton Administration. This US law was adopted in all the provinces in Canada. But the concessionaires were satisfied with the law and really love participating in the program.

What kinds of foods are/are not donated?
The food that is donated is concession food that has been prepared but not sold. And the majority of concessions have backup food–you never know when there will be an overtime. That also is donated. Some stadiums donate food served in the suites and some don’t.

Do the players get involved in any way?
They do get involved. Most of the players are playing when the pickup happens. But if a player isn’t playing that night, they may say ‘I want to pack the food up or give it to the people from the shelter.’ The players and the club employees really do feel good about it.

Have there been any obstacles to getting food donation established?
Some of the food service people took some convincing. They thought we were going to be donating raw foods. But in the end, everybody knows how worthwhile it is. And when they saw the people from the shelter pick it up, and they were so thankful–that goes a long way.

Do you have any league-wide stats for the amount of food rescued and what are the future goals for the program?
Through our clubs, we developed a data program where each of the clubs can have their food service provider put in how much they donated. At the end of this season, as a league, we’re going to have donated more than 100 tons of food to people who need it. Another way of saying that is that we’ve kept 100 tons of food out of the landfill.

There’s plenty of talk of separating organics from the waste stream, air emissions from composting, and the carbon cap-and-trade system. There was even a very public debate about land application of biosolids.

Discussion on vermiculture has been robust. I’ve talked with worm composting experts from the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Hawaii and…my hometown of Durham.

I was on a panel with Jeremy Seifert, the director of Dive!, and John Owens of Forgotten Harvest. The good news is that three people passionate about preventing food waste got to share their ideas with this crowd. The challenge is that we are in the vast minority here.

The real attention and money at BioCycle goes toward how to better process our organic waste, not on how to reduce waste creation or feed people with excess food. That’s not too surprising, as both of those actions require people modifying their behavior. But it needs t0 change.

There’s certainly a need for the attention on keeping organics from landfills. My goal is for food waste reduction to have a place at the table and an increased place at that. We shall see…

Anyway, I thought I’d share a few bits of media. In San Francisco, I had a great time chatting with Alex Wise. Turns out he taped the whole thing (including me peering into his fridge at his home studio) and it went to air for Sea Change Radio.

I also participated in a wide-ranging discussion at The Commonwealth Club. The video will be posted soonish, but here’s a recap of the night and some pictures of the affair.

Then Wednesday I taped a segment on Seattle’s NBC affiliate. I thought Margaret, the host, did a fab job. Judge for yourself:

Thursday night, it’s Powell’s in Portland. Hope to see you there!

The NFL works with local food recovery groups and acquires food from events leading up to the game and the game itself (both high and low-brow fare). The haul is usually pretty astounding and with attendance at Cowboys Stadium approaching a Super Bowl attendance record, it may come close to the 2008 benchmark of 93,000 pounds of food.

A few years back, I interviewed Jack Groh, director of the NFL Environmental Program and the originator of this commendable NFL tradition. Great guy, great program.

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For those of you at home wondering how to use up your Super Bowl party leftovers, here’s some real hands on advice on using up the leftovers from that Super Bowl veggie tray or on how to make leftovers sandwiches. Whatever strategy you take, I’m guessing Monday night’s dinner is taken care of.

Yet, with all of our abundance, though, comes the threat of waste. That’s why I’m hoping you guys will submit some advice here and on the Wasted Food Facebook page about how you plan to avoid waste at Thanksgiving.

I want to leave it wide open to allow for creativity in content and medium. But bonus points for anyone who uploads a photo or video (on Facebook) illustrating strategy or tips.

Whether it’s through words, images or both, let’s get a good dialogue going!

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Also–Finally, some clear insight on the Food Safety Bill! I still can’t believe how hard it is to find news on this piece of legislation.

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Salon offered up the useful, fun Seven Tasty Ways to Stop Wasting Food. My favorite–”Don’t be a wuss” (eat food past its expiration date).

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While some of us mourn the SunChips compostable bag, UK chip-maker Walkers are working on a bag made from potato peels that would be compostable. No word yet on whether it will be edible, too.

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Annie Leonard, who brought us the fabulous Story of Stuff, has teamed with PBS to make online episodes for kids called Loop Scoops. The webisode on garbage includes composting and ends with the valuable lesson, “Less chucking, more recycling makes you not a bozo,” including composting.

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Finally, if you find yourself a) planning a large event or festival and b) wanting to divert food from the landfill, check out this guide.

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Well then–a big food fight in Nevada. Because what’s more authentic than La Tomatina in…Reno? The tomato-tossing war cost $10 to enter, which went to cancer research. That’s hard to argue with.

But…there are many ways to fundraise. Santiago Gurule from Tables of Hope tipped me off to the event and his words on it were poetic: “You hope the majority of people would find more lasting satisfaction in supporting two important causes (finding a cure for cancer and helping to end hunger) with one tomato.”

Plus, it’s not like the town’s called Rena.

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By next year, the Minnesota State Fair could be partially powered by food waste (and manure). U. of Minnesota scientists are testing how effective it would be to convert Fair food waste and manure to energy. No word yet on whether there are plans to deep fry the waste first.

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San Jose’s Greenwaste collects a bunch of food waste from Bay Area cities (10,000 tons from Palo Alto businesses last year) and has a nice looking site to boot!

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Successful food waste collection by smaller companies like Greenwaste is no doubt behind the decision by industry biggie Waste Management to increase its organics recycling services.