2013 EcoChallenge – Food Waste

I wanted you all to know that I am very excited to be participating in the NW Earth Institute’s 2013 EcoChallenge as a Community Team EcoChallenger!  The challenge runs October 15 – 30.

What is the NW Earth Institute’s EcoChallenge?

In their own words, “The EcoChallenge is an annual event that challenges people to choose one action to reduce their environmental impact and stick with it for two weeks. Individuals and teams pick a category—water, trash, energy, food or transportation—and set a goal that stretches their comfort zone and makes a difference for themselves and the planet.”

How am I participating?

To kick off my first ever participation in the EcoChallenge, I have decided to focus on Sustainable Food Options with a specific focus on limiting food waste. With so much food going to waste every single day in the US and around the world, I would like to bring attention to the problem through writing about it in this space as we assess our own food waste and work towards lowering how much we waste on a meal by meal basis. By focusing our attention on our intention I know we can affect change in our own home and I hope we can inspire others to do the same!

Why is food waste an issue?

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How can we reduce our food waste?

Here is a helpful infographic and some information directly from the EPA website:

http://www.epa.gov/foodrecovery/

More food reaches landfills and incinerators than any other single material in municipal solid waste (MSW). In 2011 alone, more than 36 million tons of food waste was generated, with only four percent diverted from landfills and incinerators for composting.

How Can I Divert Food From Landfills?

Source Reduction/Prevention
Preventing food waste before it is created

Feeding People
Donating fresh, wholesome food to those in need

Feeding Animals
Feeding safe, fresh food scraps to animals like pig farms

Industrial Uses
Rendering fats, oils, and grease and turning it into products or biofuel

Composting
Turning food waste into a valuable soil amendment


Anaerobic Digestion
Turning food waste into renewable energy and a valuable soil amendment


Why Divert Food Waste From Landfills?

Need more?  Here’s another thing to think about in relation to food waste:

Expiration dates on food packages mean very little:Nine out of ten Americans needlessly throw away food according to a new report on expiration dates and sell-by dates.

But there are people who are thinking outside of the box and trying to come up with clever ways to use those “expired” foods: “It’s the idea about how to bring affordable nutrition to the underserved in our cities. It basically tries to utilize this 40 percent of this food that is wasted. This is, to a large degree, either excess, overstocked, wholesome food that’s thrown out by grocers, etc. … at the end of the day because of the sell-by dates.”

What will we be doing to reduce our personal food waste?

Honestly, at first I wasn’t sure where to start!  It all feels so big and so ingrained!  Habits, even wasteful, horrible habits, are hard to break!  However, after reading Meatified’s 21 Ways to Reduce Food Waste and Food Shift’s Reduce Your Waste, I feel quite equipped and inspired!

Here are a few things we will be implementing:

• We will create a meal plan for the next two weeks being realistic about the food we have and the food we need to buy.  This weekend is our shopping weekend, but that doesn’t mean we have to purchase items just to purchase them.  Intention and planning will be key here.
• We will get better about leftovers.  We are notorious for putting foods nicely in containers to use later and then never use them.  It’s a huge issue. Planning our meals should also help with leftovers.
• We will create an “eat first” shelf in the fridge and actually use it.  When we purchase our groceries every two weeks, I rotate our groceries so the older items sit in the front of the fridge, but they’re still on several different shelves.  By creating a single shelf where all of our “older” food will go, it will be easier to see and, in theory, easier to grab and eat.
• Keep a freezer bag for food scraps and peels.  When it’s full, turn it into stock.  I did this once or twice before and then stopped.  I have no reason for stopping, I just did.
• Track our trash.  While I’m not yet sure how this will exactly be implemented, I am going to do my best to track the food that goes in the trash.

And here are a few things we already do and will continue:

• Don’t trust printed food expiration dates.  One can easily smell and taste any dairy product or eat a cracker that may be past it’s official date to test it out.
• Compost – we already have a compost bucket that lives in our kitchen.  We are quite proud of our compost pile and happily feed it, but we would probably be better served to feed ourselves more intentionally first 😉
• Store leftovers in glass/see through containers so there is no mystery as to what might be in there.