Last week, a Harvard School of Public Health study exploring the impact of recent changes to school lunch came out with mixed news: students are eating more fruits and vegetables, but waste remains a problem. After the passage of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, new federal standards went into effect for the start of the 2012-2013 [...]
Figuring out the EU food waste stance has never been easy. There’s the European Parliament, European Commission, EU FUSIONS and more. Yet, I thought I had one thing figured out: 2014 was going to be a key year. It was going to be the European Year Against Food Waste. Wrong. While keeping track of the exact details is [...]
Boom! Rhode Island’s state legislature proposes a landfill food waste ban and the private sector leaps into action, with news of a planned composting facility near Providence. — — I really enjoyed this Food Hacks piece on regrowing food from the ends and other undesirable parts of herbs and veggies. If I had any use for [...]
Yesterday, New York City took a major step toward matching San Francisco and Seattle as exemplars of urban composting. The New York City Council approved a bill requiring large scale commercial operations to separate food from its regular waste stream. The legislation, which requires either composting or anaerobic digestion for large food waste generators within [...]
It’s hard to argue against keeping food waste out of landfills (where it yields the climate-changing methane emissions). Figuring out how to make that a national reality is just plain hard. With Vision 2020: The Future of Food Waste Recycling, PDM Group and ReFood have done just that for the UK. As this helpful summary article mentions, the report provides [...]
Seldom do you see Ramadan and hogs in the same sentence, but they’ve both been in the ‘food waste news’ recently. On the former, here’s a thought-provoking editorial lamenting the increased food waste during Ramadan in the United Arab Emirates. A common cooking tactic during the holy month of daylight fasting is to overprepare to [...]
The Bloomberg Administration announced plans on Sunday for an ambitious composting program for household and commercial food waste that would cover all of New York City by 2016. The move continues Mayor Bloomberg’s recent emphasis on food waste and will help reach the PlaNYC goal of diverting 75 percent of waste from landfills by 2030. The plans are [...]
I’ve been fairly critical of the USDA in the past for not doing enough to combat food waste. But I’m excited to report that the Department of Agriculture is will launch the U.S. Food Waste Challenge in a few weeks. The campaign, in conjunction with the EPA, will challenge food producers, manufacturers and retailers–really everyone [...]
Late in December, the Austin City Council declared 2013 the Year of Food Waste Prevention and Recovery in Austin, Texas. It doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, but it’s encouraging and important because: Whereas, America wastes 40 percent of its food; and Whereas wasted food has negative environmental impact and represents a lost opportunity to [...]
And so there will be another four years for President Obama. Last night’s results are unlikely to impact food waste, but it is worth noting that the Obama Administration has been friendly to the sustainable food movement. Sure, most of that support has been symbolic, emanating from the White House Garden (that you can visit!). [...]
