The borough is considering a move to the two bin system: compostable organics and other trash. State College will host a public hearing to gauge opinion on the proposal in early October.

In addition to keeping organics out of the landfill, the new plan would cut trash truck emissions, as the necessary new vehicles would run on natural gas. Heck, the municipality would even save money under the new waste plan after it paid for the new trucks in about four years.

Hopefully, after an 18-month pilot program, State College is game to start composting. From what we learn in this in-depth piece by a State College freegan, the town tosses plenty of food. Most places do.

I’m sure you’ll enjoy the film, as Dive! uses honesty and humor to illustrate the extent of retail food waste. We see director Jeremy Seifert and his freegan friends literally uncover just how much food supermarkets toss (especially Trader Joe’s).

To enter the drawing to win a DVD, leave a comment by Friday with your thoughts on dumpster diving. What do you make of the practice of taking food from supermarket or restaurant dumpsters as a way of exposing our everyday waste?

Enlightened? Gross? Practical? All Three? Other?

(I’ll announce winners early next week.)

I ain’t seen some good trash since I…since I don’t know when…

While I can’t make out any specific references to taking food from Dumpsters, edible booty is a given, right?

Anyone know of any other songs about Dumpster diving or food waste?

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Mary Baldwin College of Virginia reduced waste by 60% during their Sustainable Meal Week! Really shows how much fat is there for the trimming.

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Whether you call them Freegans or foragers, more Spaniards are eating from the trash. And here’s a look at whether Dumpster diving jibes with Jewish values.

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Finally, the Recyclemania results are in. While the exercise has its merits, I’ve always been confused by the Food Service Organics category. Shouldn’t we reward reduction (fewest pounds per student?) instead of rewarding schools for using and composting the most pounds? In that case, congrats to Nova Southeastern Univ. for producing 0.00 pounds of food waste per student!

We also learn that the accused the store had discarded the food in question because it had gone unrefrigerated for too long, after a power outage. Hall took the food, deemed to have a value of £215.16, from a trash area behind the store.

Now, I can understand how dumpster diving can be classified as trespassing. That designation is logical, albeit ethically shaky. But I’m not sure how you can assign a monetary value to items that you’ve thrown out.

I think Hall sums it up rather perfectly:

“I would think the police have better things to be doing with their time than going after people who pick up potato waffles from the street…”

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The Boston Globe highlights the trick of creating energy from beer-brewing byproducts practiced by Magic Hat and other breweries.

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If you don’t read The Frugal Girl‘s recurring feature, Food Waste Friday, you’re missing out. In case you’re wondering just what you’re missing, here are some lessons from The Single Saver on what she’s learned by blogging about her food waste every Friday.

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Sweden is investing $700,000 in food waste collection and conversion to biogas. That’s a lot of kroner! (4 million).

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Second Harvest of Toronto isn’t a schoolyard bully, but, yesterday, they told everyone to hand over their lunch money. In Lunch Money Day, the food pantry asked Torontonians to pack their lunch and donate their usual eating-out cash to the non-profit.

Moreover, “roughly 40 percent of the food currently produced worldwide is wasted before it is consumed, creating large opportunities for farmers and households to save both money and resources by reducing this waste,” according to Brian Halweil, Nourishing the Planet co-director.

(Their blog has plenty of useful info, too.)

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Those who get the Travel Channel can watch some dumpster diving on Tuesday’s show. Here’s a teaser.

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A startup making anaerobic digesters to fit behind large cafeterias and supermarkets helmed by a guy with an awesome name like Hunt Briggs? How do I become an investor?

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Finally: Might “Poo-gloos” be the solution to processing food waste?? Probably not, but it is fun to see that word on the screen…

My first event was part presentation, part panel discussion. My fellow panelists, Elizabeth Royte (Garbageland) and Elizabeth Meltz (the sustainability czar for Mario Batali’s empire ), did a fabulous job bringing the issue to life, answering questions and tying it to New York.

The organizers, Kerry from Eating Liberally and Paula from Civil Eats, were the night’s true heroes, wearing many hats–including toques. They even convinced Marion Nestle to attend.

In addition to those all-stars, I got to meet some old e-mail buddies in person: Chris of Meatless Monday, Daniel of People’s Garden NYC, Gary of AmpleHarvest.org and Elizabeth from Egg in a Box.

The book reading the next night was intimate and interesting. I’d never done an event at a restaurant, but the Half King, a bar that serves food, fit that description. I considered doing a plate waste “show and tell,” but eased up on the attendees. After all, they had come to the event.

While in New York, I saw some fascinating food-waste-to-energy news from Sweden and got to see my name in The New Yorker (in David Owen’s piece, page 80–the whole thing isn’t available online).

One thing I gleaned from the trip is that there are a number of like-minded people in NYC bent on reducing waste and/or composting it. Yet, after all that activity, it’s now time to recuperate. Normal blog service will resume on Friday…

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Slow Food (the original one, in Italy) recently held an event called 1,000 Plates Against Waste to raise awareness about waste. Cool idea:

One thousand people joined a symbolic moment in the centre of Turin this weekend to protest against waste, taking part in a communal meal created entirely from surplus supermarket food destined for the trash.

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As a rule, I link to all op-eds that mix John Locke and duck sauce. And I like the sentiment of the piece.

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I’ve linked to this before, but it’s worth an encore: The pizza box with perforations to enable a transformation into four plates and a smaller box for storing leftovers (should any exist). Smart.

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Oh, Last Minute Market, if only you had an English version of your site for us non-Italiano speakers. UPDATE: But HT to Chris Pepe and Google, here’s a translation. And then there’s this brochurem, which helps a bit.

I found this piece about living for free in London totally engrossing. The article comments on the disposable nature of British, and really Western, society. And of course, a big part of that is food. The author, Katharine Hibbert comments on how the timing of retail system means produce currently ripe has almost no value for wholesalers. 

For fruit and veg, I would visit New Covent Garden, the wholesalers’ market. The bins were surrounded by fresh produce, most of it perfect to be eaten that day or the next – no good for retailers but fine for us. I feasted on melons and mangoes, blueberries and raspberries, cherries and ripe avocados.

One of Hibbert’s takeaway lessons was music to my ears:

Even if the businesses and homeowners couldn’t reduce the amount of waste, they didn’t have to dispose of their surplus as rubbish. FareShare, the food redistribution charity, say they could redistribute 15 times more surplus food than they currently do.

I don’t often think of freegans choosing they feel like eating, but Hibbert soon found that she had plenty of options: 

I learned when cafes and shops threw out food and could adjust my foraging route according to what I fancied eating. I learned that bags containing food weigh more than those full of empty cups and boxes, and that the more upmarket the supermarket, the more they throw away.

Unfortunately, the story doesn’t have the happiest ending. Things are getting harder for scavengers:

Several skipping spots that were reliable sources of meals have been sabotaged – a large branch of EAT, for example, used to throw away sacks of sandwiches, wraps, salads, yoghurts and fruit every day. It still does, but now the shop assistants open every packet before putting it in the bag, emptying yoghurt over salads and sandwiches to make them inedible.

But, there is a happy ending to this post–Hibbert has a book on her experiences coming out this month (Free: Adventures on the Margins of a Wasteful Society). I bet it’ll be good, based on this excerpt and that it’s less ‘my year of living for free’ and more ‘my new life of living for free.’ And, if you get it at the library–it’ll be free.