‘Tis the season for the holidays! For many of us the holidays are a time for gathering with family and friends and sharing plenty of food, drink and merriment. And for many households, more food is prepared than can be consumed.
Here in the U.S. we leave an insane amount of food unused. An average family of four leaves behind nearly $1,600 to $2,000 each year to food that is purchased but not eaten. Unfortunately of that unused food, 35 million tons goes to the landfill every year. “For the business sector, that economic impact is even more staggering,” says Mathy Stanislaus, assistant administrator to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Land and Emergency Management (OLEM).
A big part of addressing the problem is creating an awareness and educating the public on the social, economic and environmental impacts of unused food. With a better understanding of these impacts, setting goals to measure and improve food management is key to reducing food that becomes waste. In September 2015, the EPA and U.S. Department of Agriculture announced a new food-reduction goal: to cut the country’s food waste 50 percent by 2030.
What can we do to reduce unused food? Starting small is usually always a good approach. Buy only what you need, plan and save, and be a smart consumer. Be aware of buying big quantities in an effort to save. Finally, make sure to use those composters! Composting food is vital to reaching our reduction goal, as it is how we keep unused food from becoming waste. Here are some resources for becoming more food savvy:
Let’s Talk Trash – USDA Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion has developed a new infographic which provides food waste & loss facts and reduction tips.
FoodKeeper App – helps you understand food and beverage storage food and beverage storage.
EPS’s suggestions for reducing food waste.
How do you find a commercial composter near you? Check out www.findacomposter.com. It’s an on-line database that is searchable by ZIP code.
Hopefully we can all think of ways to be more mindful of limiting our unused food not only at the holidays but throughout the year. On that note, I like this fitting quote by EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, “Let’s feed people, not landfills.”
Happy Holidays
We’re doing something new for 2017 – tracking our recyclable and compostable materials at headquarters all year. Typically, we have done only one waste sort per year, but to better understand what we are throwing away, this year we will be doing four.
In May, we did our first one of the year, and what follows is a quick snapshot of how we did and how we can do even better. Our next sort will be on Tuesday, August 1st; I hope you will join us!
How did we do?
Good news, we are nearing our 90% goal! During our May audit we hit a diversion rate (Recycling + Composting) of 87%. As you can see below, the majority of the material was compostable (56%.)
But according to our potential, we could be all the way up above 90% if we were more careful to put the right stuff in the right bins. Check it out:
Throughout the years, we have been steadily increasing our diversion rate – 75% in 2015, 80% in 2016 – so let’s keep it up and get over our goal of 90% this year!
When compared to Colorado’s diversion rate of around 19%, we are doing great. That’s why we are leaders!
Contamination is always the struggle with recycling and composting, but we did a pretty good job. We saw very few wrong items. There was one aluminum can in the trash, as well as some plastic film. Make sure that we get that aluminum in the recycling always, and put any plastic bags or film (clean and dry #2 and #4) in the extra bin next to our kitchen Zero Waste station.
Come participate in the next materials audit on Tuesday, August 1st at 12:30pm on the West Side of the building. My hope is to have everyone join me for one of these, so come on out!
If you want to know more you can email me at sustainabilitymaven@ecoproducts.com.[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]
