The Clean Plate Club
by Tao Oliveto, Carrboro, NC
Food leftovers are the single largest component of the waste stream by weight in the United States. Households throw away more 25% of our food - about 96 billion pounds of food a year. Meanwhile, the average restaurant generates 50,000 pounds of waste a year - 50% of it is food. Overall, about half of the food produced in the U.S. is wasted.
The rest of the developing world is catching up. Food waste in Hong Kong has doubled over the past 5 years - restaurants are now fining patrons for uneaten food, by the ounce or by the sushi. Although restaurants are ultimately responsible for controlling their end-of-day waste, it’s up to the consumer to change habits. Order only what you can eat and take home what you can’t (come prepared with your own to-go container or ask for your food to be wrapped in foil rather than put into a box). If leftovers are not your doggie bag, at least you can feed your home compost.
When did we start throwing food away - before or after we started installing disposals in kitchen sinks? Food and water make the world go ’round, yet we take both for granted. Shifting this perspective is especially important for children - some of the biggest wasters at home and in school lunchrooms. It’s up to parents to make an early impression. I remember my mom often saying, “Your eyes are bigger than your stomach.” It was really unusual to throw any food away. (Parents, give your kids what they need, not only what they want, establishing better eating habits - and less wastefulness in the future.)
Landfills are the largest human-related source of methane in the United States, a greenhouse gas that is 21 times more potent than CO2. Most of the methane produced is from anerobic kitchen waste, which, when oxygen depleted, ferments rather than composts. As it turns out, food in landfills causes more problems that non-biodegradables. Food for thought.
March 13th, 2008 at 3:40 pm
And don’t forget chickens! We’ve discovered they are a great way to get rid of food that’s past its best, or if, despite your best efforts, you can’t finish everything on your plate. Rice, soggy breakfast cereals, stale bread, mouldy tomatoes, egg shells and all manner of waste food can be recycled into chicken feed and, eventually, yummy eggs before you start the cycle all over again.
March 16th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
There’s the other end of the equation too. Soil degradation has been called by some soil scientists a problem as big as climate change. What are we doing throwing out nutrients? It’s sinful (pretty sure the Vatican would agree at this point.) –
March 18th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
And, as I’ve posted on previously, worms can do the work in an indoor or outdoor compost. Most importantly, however, we need to restore the notion that food is valuable and necessary and not worthy of being “trashed”.
Thanks for your enthusiastic comments. Tao