The week has ended and I think I have made some progress with this week’s challenge of reducing food waste.  For those just joining us, my wife Ashley assigns me a green task to research and accomplish every week and this week’s task was regarding food waste.  Not only have we made some changes around the house, I learned a bit about Freeganism (which fascinates me) and also about food waste and food recovery in my hometown of Fargo, ND.

I learned that 96 billion pounds of good food is thrown away every year in the United States.  Not only is this shocking to me, but it is also a shame.  Last I heard, there are several hungry people in the US and it would be really great if we could get this food into the hands of people who need it.   Some people even go the extra step to make this happen. 

Not only is this waste unfortunate because we have hungry people, but also because of the environmental effects.  Food waste emits methane which is much more destructive than Carbon Dioxide.  Food causes our landfills to fill up at a more rapid rate and there is long term costs associated with this also.  These are all good reasons to stop food from every getting into the garbage to begin with.

We can stop food from entering the garbage system by either composting or donating to local food banks.  If you work at a place that throws away good food, why not ask if you can set up a food rescue process to get that food into the right hands.  Although I am not positive it really happens, I have been reading stories about grocery stores throwing bleach on food in the dumpster or putting locks on so people cannot use this food.  Might it be just as easy to give it to the local food banks if they pick it up?

I have contacted both the city and Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota/Great Plains Food Bank to learn about food waste and recovery in my area.  I have found that our landfill is fairly progressive as far as landfills go.  I have also learned that over 50 restaurants, stores and bakeries participate in a food recovery program.  I am impressed with our programs and look forward to a potential tour of the LSSND food recovery headquarters.

In our house, we have cleared out all bad food from the freezer and composting what we can in our Nature Mill composter.  We are keeping a list of items close to expiration on the fridge (I am keeping the list on a backside of junk mail) and working to use all items.  We will continue to plan some of our meals throughout the week so we can better shop.  I have tracked the food I have thrown away this week and it has been very minimal.  A few pieces of fruit peelings (by mistake) and some goose leg bones that cannot be composted.  That is it for food waste.  In summary, I think we have become more efficient in regards to keeping food and think our long term food waste will decrease as a result of this week’s work.

I hope you all have enjoyed reading my progress this week and please let me know if you have any tips of food waste or information about food recovery programs in your area.