This video combines two of my favorite things–local news and tree gleaning. Here, Tucson’s KVOA tells us about Iskash*taa Refugee Harvesting network, which gleans backyard citrus trees to sweeten refugees’ lives. Plus, it’s awesome to see the recipients harvesting alongside others. That experience and interaction will benefit both recipients and volunteers. My one complaint: how [...]
I’m working like crazy to make my book deadline, but I’d hate to leave you in a lurch on Presidents’ Day. So, a few quick links: While doing some final research on the apple industry, I came across this article on apples gone to ground. An oldie but goodie, er, sort of. While we’re talking about apples…this may [...]
On my last day in Chile for this chef’s conference, I ran into some farm waste. A group of 50 of us were touring an avocado, grape and citrus farm called Desarrollo Agrario thanks to Hass Avocado (warning: awesome jingle at this site. Also, palta, not aguacate, is South American Spanish for avocado). On the [...]
Here’s a little drilling down on the cultural barriers to asking for doggy bags in the UK. — — Green Seal restaurant standards just received a nice boost in the form of national recognition (from ANSI). Not that I have a clue about design, but I’m still not wild about the Green Seal logo–it seems more blue [...]
This morning, I was on WNPR’s Where We Live. As always, I had a good time talking waste (even though I’m not a morning person, which showed a few times). The hour really flew by and there were a few things I was hoping to get in but didn’t. For example, a caller mentioned how [...]
I’ve written about vacation rental food waste recovery (mouthful!) before, but here’s a recent news report on it (with video). This is one of my favorite ideas, as it allows families who’ve rented homes for a beach getaway to donate their vacation groceries before they leave town. — — Atta boy, Texas! — — From a review of [...]
Among the originators of tree gleaning, L.A.’s Fallen Fruit have a different way of going about it. They bill themselves as an “activist art project.” The group started by mapping and gathering public fruit, “which is what we call all fruit on or overhanging public spaces such as sidewalks, streets or parking lots.” They now have a [...]
This Tuesday, I wrote about online food swapping sites. Another such site, Veggie Trader, has only been operating for a few weeks, but is already creating some buzz. Rob Anderson, one of the site’s Portland-based creators, was nice enough to answer a few questions: How’d you come up with the idea for Veggie Trader? A [...]
Things are looking grim for a potential California bill that would allow catering customers to demand that their excess food be donated. After having her bill rebuffed last year, State Sen. Jenny Oropeza has decided to take a slow steady approach this year. It seems like a victory for the loose coalition of intertia, fear [...]
Eureka! Folks in that California town are thinking about installing a digester to turn food waste to energy. — — Word out of England is that some pols want to ban “buy one, get one free” deals. The Liberal-Democrats’ rationale is that stores are luring people to buy more food than they need, causing unnecessary [...]
