Forget Greece. The real news out of Europe this week was the Environment Commissioner targeting a 50% food waste reduction in the EU by 2020. Beautiful. — — 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 [...]
Sainsbury’s keeps upping the stakes on how a supermarket can do the right thing regarding food waste. The British retailer commissioned research on how purchased food isn’t eaten and found that the average household tosses 10% of what they buy. And that comes at a cost–of about £50 per month. Sainsbury’s also worked w/ quasi-governmental [...]
If your pumpkin wasn’t smashed Regardless of whether your pumpkin was smashed or is whole, you can compost it. If you live in San Francisco, you can convert it to energy. Me? I’ll be roasting and eating mine… — — British supermarket chain Sainsbury’s is now sending all of its food waste to anaerobic digesters [...]
USA! USA! Oh, wait–first place is bad here. 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 [...]
In case you missed it, there was a fabulous op-ed in Friday’s Times. Its two authors looked at global food waste and characterized it as an opportunity to feed the 925 million undernourished people on this earth. The authors do a nice job conveying the scale of our waste. But it also gets beyond the numbers, illustrating [...]
California, not content with having achieved the goal set in 1989 of recycling 50 percent of its waste stream, just passed a bill requiring the state to keep 75 percent of its trash out of the landfill. Way to set the bar high, Cali! — — The Occupy Wall Street gang gets plenty of donated [...]
Here’s a detailed description of keeping worms to compost food that has the added bonus of being the first piece I’ve ever read that manages to combine vermiculture and The Wire. — — Last night’s dinner can be today’s breakfast? Si, Senor! — — This piece on a chef-led, British campaign to bag food waste has two stunners. [...]
What’s not to love about making beer from the otherwise-wasted abundance around us all? Fullsteam (brewery) makes me proud to live in Durham. — — Also in my city–there’s now a program that encourages people to leave food on their porch for raccoons volunteers to collect. Believe it or not, it works well! — — If [...]
The BBC caught wind of the study profiled here on Wednesday and interviewed the researcher and a TV chef, posing the slightly sensationalistic question: Do Celebrity Chefs Cause More Waste? — — “Were you eating this apple” he asked a moment later. Yup, he was pointing to my apple. I nodded. “Come on down, pick [...]
Everybody loves having their theories confirmed. This bit of qualitative research from the University of Manchester did that for yours truly. I’ve long believed this formula to be true: Heightened expectations for cooking homemade meals + Busy lifestyles = More waste. Now I have some sociological support for that theory, along with some interviews that [...]
