The media just loves the freegan story. And why wouldn’t they? The idea that people can subsist on what we throw away really intrigues people. This BBC article has some interesting U.K. data packed into one paragraph:
Each year 6.7 million tonnes of food is thrown out. Half is perfectly edible and in a lifetime its estimated […]

Americans don’t eat about 25 percent of what they bring into their home. (That number comes from an interview I did with William Rathje, the former director of the University of Arizona’s Garbage Project.)
How do we waste a quarter of the food we bring home? A decent chunk of that comes from buying too much […]

Whenever the discussion of food waste comes up, the 27 percent figure soon follows. According to the USDA’s helpful research wing–the Economic Research Service (ERS)–that amount of the edible food available for human consumption in the US at retail, restaurant and consumer levels is “lost to human use.”
My 3 cents:
1. It’s incomplete. It only counts […]

Let’s look at another figure from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) study. The ESRC study counts 17 million tonnes of British food waste annually. Fareshare, the national charity that redistributes excess food, says almost one-fourth of that is perfectly edible when it’s thrown away.
To subtract the ‘es’ from 17 million tonnes, we multiply a bit to arrive at […]

Last week, Britain’s Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) released a study called Consumption: Reducing, Reusing and Recycling. Because I’m slow at math, I’m just now pondering its import.
My first instinct is to compare Britons’ food waste to ours. The ESRC study reports that the “Every year British consumers each waste £424 on food they do not eat.” […]

The National Restaurant Asociation’s 2007 Restaurant Show concluded Tuesday. While I wasn’t able to attend–they make journalists jump through many, many hoops–apparently environmental awareness was a big theme there.
Exhibitors displayed plenty of recycling innovations like compostable cups made from corn. Much more exciting, though, LeanPath, Inc. unveiled its ValuWaste product. This product assesses the composition of food waste […]

Most of us can remember the euphoria of zipping out the school door for…RECESS! Yet, that rush often means uneaten food is tossed in the trash.
Studies have found that when lunch is after recess, elementary school students eat more and waste less–about 30 percent less (recess-before-lunch-powerpoint.ppt). And according to a 1996 survey, 78 percent of cafeteria managers cited “attention on recess, […]

Apparently wasted food is a hot topic in Turkey. According to Today’s Zaman, an English-language daily paper linked to The Times of London, food waste is a problem in Turkey.
In this article and a more comprehendible news roundup, the paper reported that one-third of the food from all-inclusive hotels’ buffets goes to waste. The data is from a […]

Hefty plate waste after eating out isn’t just an American specialty. Thanks to its abundance of restaurants and hotels, wasted food comprises one third of Hong Kong’s landfill space. (The US average is about 12 percent.)
To reduce their food waste, local eateries have implemented an interesting idea–fining buffet diners for uneaten food. Voice of America […]

It’d be silly to blog on food waste without talking about helping the hungry. To wit: Stamp Out Hunger. Thanks to this neat idea now in its 15th year you don’t even have to leave your house to help those less fortunate. Just leave non-perishable food items in a bag beside your mailbox this Saturday and your letter […]