Greenversations

By Jeri Weiss

Here’s a quick quiz: 1. What happens to the packaged snacks second graders decide not to eat? 2. What do hotels do with the half rolls of toilet-paper and half bottles of shampoo you leave behind? 3. Where does uneaten food, including food still in wrappers, end up after a conference ends.

You guessed it: these items end up in the trash.

If you’re anything like me, this kind of waste makes you want to eat food when you’re already full and tote slimy shampoo bottles across the country when you leave a hotel. But a group called Rock and Wrap It Up! has come up with a better solution. And recently this group, along with the Boston Bruins and National Hockey League was recognized by EPA at the Boston Garden.

During the 2010-11 season, the Boston Bruins donated 3,796 meals to the Boston Rescue Mission, keeping about 2.5 tons of food from being thrown out)

In honor of America Recycles Day Nov. 15, EPA teamed up with the Bruins, the New Jersey Devils and the NHL to recognize the program in which the Bruins donate prepared but unused, safe edible food to the Boston Rescue Mission and help to feed needy people while also accomplishing an important environmental service. NHL teams across the country recycle more than 105 tons of food, giving out 163,000 meals in North America.
Food donation is so simple, it’s hard to imagine what took us so long. It has little or no program start-up cost, and provides needed food to hungry people.

Rock and Wrap it Up began at the Jones Beach Theater in New York, when the manager agreed to give away rather than throw away food left over by a band. The organization quickly grew to include theaters across the country, then schools, hotels and sports venues.

Since 1991, Rock and Wrap it Up has given more than 250 million pounds of food. Among the the hotel groups participating are the Langham and Lenox hotels in Boston.

Rock and Wrap It Up’s newest project is Hungerpedia.com, an online database of charitable organizations. Any anti-poverty organization that wants to be on the list can send information in through a straightforward online application and individuals can also get involved through the website.

The cliché is never more true than when it comes to food waste– your trash is truly someone else’s treasure.

Rock It and Wrap It Up (http://www.rockandwrapitup.org/)

About the author: Jeri Weiss works in EPA’s New England regional office, in Boston. She is one of the region’s experts on recycling and waste management issues.

Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed in Greenversations are those of the author. They do not reflect EPA policy, endorsement, or action, and EPA does not verify the accuracy or science of the contents of the blog.

By Felicia Chou

I’ve seen a lot of mold in my life. Bluish-green spotty ones, cottony white ones, even bright orange ones. I’ve been seeing them more often when digging around in my fridge, which is now a thriving spore-iffic ecosystem. And with Thanksgiving is coming up, I’m sure there will be even more leftovers.

So maybe sometimes I forget that I’ve had a bag of tomatoes sitting in the fridge since August. An extra bag of tomatoes in the landfill isn’t going to make a difference, right?

Dr. William L. Rathje found decade-old hotdogs and guacamole in recognizable condition buried in a landfill. Without the proper sunlight, air, and water, my tomatoes could sit in an airtight landfill for who-knows-how-long without biodegrading. In 2010, 33.79 million tons of food waste ended up in landfills. That’s 67,580,000,000 pounds worth of food we’ve dumped in one year. Imagine how much more might end up in landfills this holiday season if we don’t cut down on food waste.

So what can we do? At the grocery store, only buy what you know you will finish eating. Keep a list of food items in the fridge so you always remember what you already have, even if it’s hidden in the back and you can’t find it right away. If you have extra food after your Thanksgiving feast, finish up the food in the upcoming days, or share them with your neighbor. Your local food bank and other food rescue programs are happy to take wholesome, uneaten food for those who need it. And finally, you can compost your leftovers to nurture your garden.

If I had to choose between wasting food or burying it in landfills in non-biodegradable limbo, versus saving money by not buying unneeded food,  donating wholesome food to those who need it, or having an awe-inspiring garden, I’d prefer the latter.  Just imagine the amount of food we could keep out of landfills if all school cafeterias, grocery stores, restaurants, and other major food producers could reduce, donate, and compost as much as possible.

So while I clean out my fridge (composting all the inedible “food”), and pledge to only buy what I can finish from now on, think what can you do this Thanksgiving to cut down on food waste?

About the author: Felicia Chou is a Program Analyst in the Office of Resource Conservation and Recovery since 2008. One of her fondest Thanksgiving memories was chasing a wild turkey down the city streets of Taiwan. She has no idea where the turkey came from, and what it was doing loose on the streets, and what it was doing in Taiwan.

Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed in Greenversations are those of the author. They do not reflect EPA policy, endorsement, or action, and EPA does not verify the accuracy or science of the contents of the blog.

Instead of throwing it away, food waste can be composted and reused on lawns and gardens. Yet food waste remains single-largest component of the waste stream by weight in the U.S.

What do you do with food waste?

Each week we ask a question related to the environment. Please let us know your thoughts as comments. Feel free to respond to earlier comments or post new ideas. Previous questions.

About the author: Cara Peck is an Environmental Scientist in EPA Region 9. For the past three years she has worked on the recycling of organic materials, but is now working on reducing the climate change and energy implications from the Agriculture Industry.

I love food. At various points along the day, it is a safe bet that I’m thinking about what to eat for my next meal. This could be the product of growing up in Northern California where we have amazing food, or it could be because I love to cook and eating logically follows cooking. Whatever the reason, I’m a huge fan of food.

While many share my love of the culinary world, there is an ugly and harmful side to the delicacies we enjoy- food waste. Organic waste, which includes food, currently makes up 25% of what is going to landfills. In addition to a host of other problems, landfills emit methane, a potent greenhouse gas. In an effort to try to get this food waste out of landfills, I started researching the anaerobic digestion of food waste. Basically, in an atmosphere without oxygen, bacteria feed on the food waste, break it down, and produce biogas in the process. Amazingly, biogas is an energy source, so in the process of reducing waste, energy is produced!

To further explore this project, I managed a few projects that investigated using this technology at wastewater treatment facilities. Many wastewater treatment facilities already use anaerobic digesters to break down sewage sludge. In addition, most of these digesters have excess capacity for something like… food waste!

Here’s a snapshot of how the process works: food scraps are collected at nearby restaurants. Then are sent to a local wastewater treatment facility, processed and injected into the anaerobic digesters. The bacteria go to work, break down the waste and produce biogas. The biogas is captured and used on site to power the facility, or even sent back to the grid. The residual that is left after the bugs have done their job is reduced, making it much easier to truck to the compost facility. Upon further composting, the material can be used as a soil amendment to grow more food. It’s a true closed-loop, sustainable system.

This technology has national applicability and I’m excited to see it more widely adopted in an effort to reduce waste and to combat climate change.

Since I do love food so much, I must admit that there isn’t often much waste left on my plate. However, I feel a little better about my love affair with food knowing that the waste that is left is going to a higher use and not contributing to climate change.