FOOD FOR THOUGHT LIVING OFF THE URBAN WASTE
yoghurt packaging that will prevent the loss of yoghurt. Food packaging that can be opened and reopened could also be a good solution. We need to remember that over-excessive packaging is bad for the environment, yet the Swedish scientists say that What Can We Do. the environmental impact of food waste is much larger than the Fighting food waste does matter. Perhaps most consumers cannot environmental impact of food packaging. If a right balance can connect all the dots. Perhaps throwing away good leftovers or be achieved, the food packaging can be a significant tool against fresh food doesn’t really matter to them, because they can always food waste. buy more food. And, well, as long as you always can buy more What The Food Industry Can Do. food, it doesn’t really matter whether you trash it or not. Does it?
A GLOBAL TRAGEDY
It does. The planet’s population has just reached 7 billion, of which almost 1 billion are starving. Yet, FAO estimates that more than 30% of the world’s food production ends up as garbage. That puts the annual food waste at a staggering 1.3 billion tons - or enough to feed 3 billion people. As we look at the climate perspective, it is estimated that 14% of the world’s CO2 emissions are caused by food waste alone. By 2050, the world’s population will reach 9 billion. To meet the demand food production must increase by an estimated 70%. Therefore food waste, which today still seems to be an invisible problem, must become one of the main focus areas in the future.
The food industry and farmers in developed countries are usually quite good in avoiding food losses and food waste. However, there will always be a degree of unavoidable food waste that cannot be prevented. That unavoidable food waste can be of a good use for biogas. More and more biogas plants are being developed in Europe – and one day the retailers and farmers will no longer need to send the food waste to landfill, but will send it to biogas plants. That, however, needs a solid infrastructure and financial support from the governments. The biogas industry also has a great potential of creating thousand of new jobs, which is quite valuable especially in the times of financial crisis.
What Consumers Can Do.
We Must Act.
While the food waste in the developing countries is caused by post harvest food losses, food waste in the developed countries is mainly caused by retailers and consumers. As a consumer, you can do a great deal to fight food waste. By doing so, you can both contribute to lesser CO2 emissions and save your money – a winwin situation. First of all, you have to remember that as a consumer, you have a great power: you have the power over the retailers - they do not have the power over you. While most of the retailers want to force their customers to buy more food than they actually need, the consumers have the power to buy only what they actually need. Planning, shopping lists, cooking of leftovers, sharing food with neighbors are some examples of good tools against food waste. The most important is to buy only what you actually need – and use what you have bought.
So, the message is clear: let’s all stop wasting food! Let’s turn the global tragedy of food waste into a new global potential. Less food waste can save millions of Euros and bring big economic profits. It can create thousands of new jobs, it can contribute to lesser CO2 emissions - and in the long run, it can revolutionize the entire food industry.
What Retailers Can Do. As a retailer, you can take several measures against food waste. For example, the British retail chain Tesco started selling last minute food by offering large discounts. Many consumers buy and cook food the very same day, and thus both food waste and money loss is avoided. The Danish retail chain Rema 1000, inspired by the work of our Stop Wasting Food movement, dropped all quantity discounts in the chain’s all 200+ Danish stores and thereby contributes to less food waste. Many single people don’t need large quantity discounts and family-size portions. By not forcing them to buy more than they actually need, large amount of food waste can be avoided. Good edible food, which for legal reasons can no longer be sold in the stores, can be donated to shelters and refugee centers. This summer, Stop Wasting Food movement coordinated the donation of 14 tons of good surplus food - 26 pallets with 38,842 tins of red kidney beans and corn - to three Danish Red Cross refugee centers in Denmark. It’s a drop in the ocean, but it still matters. All retailers can get in contact with a shelter or a refugee center nearby and donate good surplus food. You don’t have to be a charity organization to do it. Thereby, good food can help the ones in need – and food waste will be avoided.
What The Packaging Industry Can Do. Food packaging, although it’s a great tool to prevent food waste, also contributes to a great deal of food waste. Sometimes up to 25% of food is wasted because it is stuck in the food packaging. I was one of the speakers at FAO’s congress ‘SAVE FOOD’ at Interpack Düsseldorf and it was my pleasure to learn that intelligent food packaging is now being developed, along with a focus on nanotechnology. The Danish Arla Foods is now developing a
La Tomatina La Tomatina is a festival that is held in the Valencian town of Bu単ol, a town located 30 km from the Mediterranean, in which participants throw tomatoes and get involved in this tomato fight purely for fun. It is held on the last Wednesday of August, during the week of festivities of Bu単ol.
FOOD WASTE
Looking for solutions, the report argues that reducing reliance on retailers such as big supermarkets could help cut food waste in the north, and suggests promoting the direct sale of farm produce The third we waste. to consumers. It also encourages retailers and charities to work One third of the world’s food produced for human consumption is together, to distribute unsold but perfectly edible food that would lost or wasted each year, according to a study (pdf) released on otherwise go to waste. Wednesday by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). For developing countries, the study says the key lies in strengthening Roughly 1.3bn tonnes of food is either lost or wasted globally food supply chains, urging investment in infrastructure and due to inefficiencies throughout the food supply chain, says the transportation, along with increased attention to food storage, report, based on research by the Swedish Institute for Food and processing and packaging. Biotechnology (Sik). Amid rising global food prices, the study While world food prices fell slightly in March this year – after eight says that reducing food losses in developing countries could months of successive increases – the overall cost of food in April have an “immediate and significant” impact on livelihoods and was 36% higher than it was last year. Prices of wheat, maize and food security in some of the world’s poorest countries. soya reached levels last seen in 2008, when a global food crisis According to the report, industrialised and developing countries waste or lose roughly the same amount of food each year – 670m and 630m tonnes respectively. But while rich countries waste food primarily at the level of the consumer, the main issue for developing countries is food lost due to weak infrastructure – including poor storage, processing and packaging facilities that lack the capacity to keep produce fresh. Food losses mean lost income for small farmers and higher prices for poor consumers in developing countries, says the study.
sparked food riots across the developing world. Last month, the World Bank said that rising food prices had pushed 44 million more people into extreme poverty, and the World Bank president, Robert Zoellick, added that an additional 10 million people could soon fall below the $1.25 a day extreme poverty line unless immediate action was taken to increase the supply of food.
But the FAO-backed report says: “Food production must clearly increase significantly to meet the future demands of an increasing and more affluent world population … In a world with limited natural resources (land, water, energy, fertiliser), and where cost-effective solutions are to be found to produce enough safe and nutritious food for all, reducing food losses should not be a forgotten priority.”
The average European or North American consumer wastes 95kg-115kg of food a year, above all fruits and vegetables. In contrast, the average consumer in sub-Saharan Africa, south Asia or south-east Asia wastes only 6kg-11kg. The study notes that in developing countries poverty and limited incomes make An executive at the world’s second-biggest consumer goods it unacceptable to waste food, and that poor consumers in low- company told a conference that food is ‘too cheap’ and far too income countries generally buy smaller amounts of food at a time. much is being wasted as a result. Food wasted by consumers in rich countries (222m tonnes) is Jan Kees Vis, the global director for sustainable sourcing roughly equal to the entire food production of sub-Saharan Africa development at Unilever said that half of the food that is purchased (230m tonnes). in the city of London is never eaten.
MAKING THE MOST OF WASTE What can you do? Rather than let waste go to waste, or worse – landfill, we’re working on ways to make the most of it. For example, by turning food waste into fuel.
Food to fuel The Mayor’s Food to Fuel Alliance focuses on encouraging the development of food waste infrastructure in London. It aims to promote and enable five food waste projects to be developed in London by 2012 to deliver one or more of the following: decentralised renewable heat and power renewable transport fuel (bio-fuel) demonstration of links to hydrogen fuel cells compost material for local use. Achieving environmental benefits from waste
The Mayors Plan The Mayor’s Municipal Waste Management Strategy sets out how the Mayor aims to shift London’s waste from a net contributor of climate change to a source of emissions savings. The Mayor’s emissions performance standard is a metric that considers the overall carbon impact of waste management activities and the carbon intensity floor sets the minimum CO2eq that can emitted from turning London’s local authority collected waste to energy. The Greenhouse Gas Calculator is a free tool that can be used to determine the emissions of an authority’s unique waste management solutions, based on WRATE lifecycle assessment methodology. The tool also calculates whether the option meets the Mayor’s emissions performance standard and carbon intensity floor. Developing new waste management infrastructure The Mayor is keen for London to retain the value of its waste by managing more of this material within the capital. The London Waste and Recycling Board (LWARB) manages a £73 million fund to assist the development of new waste management infrastructure in London. A list of LWARB’s infrastructure projects can be found at www.lwarb.gov.uk. LWARB have also produced an online map of London’s waste sites and strategic industrial sites with potential for the development of new waste management facilities http://www.londonwastemap.org/ If your local authority has given you a kitchen caddy to collect food waste, you can usually recycle any cooked or raw food scraps. Make sure you remove all packaging from your food waste, especially plastic. These collections will allow you to recycle your cooked and raw food scraps which will then go off to be commercially composted at a local facility. This compost is then used in agriculture, landscaping and horticulture.
both methods work effectively together. Meat, fish and dairy products together with any cooked food can be put into your food waste collection and must not be composted at home as they may attract unwanted visitors to your garden. All fruit and vegetable peelings can be composted at home. For a more comprehensive list of compostable items, visit Making Compost.com
What you can and cant do.
Indoor Composting Projects
What else can I do with it? Make compost at home... You can add the following items of food waste to your compost bin: Fruit and vegetable peelings, seeds and cores Tea bags Coffee grounds and filter papers Paper towels or tissues (not if they have touched meat) Egg shells You cannot compost: cooked food, fish, meat or dairy products. How do I combine my food waste collection and home composting? To ensure that you recycle as much of your food waste as possible,
Trash Can Compost Bin To compost indoors, place a brick in the bottom of a large trash can with a lid. Surround the brick with sawdust, wood chips or soil. In a smaller trash can, drill holes in the sides and bottom, and set the smaller trash can on top of the brick. Place your items to be composted inside the smaller trash can. The drainage holes keep the compost from becoming too wet, and the material at the bottom absorbs the liquid that drains from your compost, preventing odors and mess. Keep the compost well mixed to speed up the process and reduce odors.
What to Put In You can add the same materials to an indoor compost container or worm bin as you do to an outdoor pile. Add two parts dried “browns” like dead leaves, shredded paper or sawdust for every one part moist, fresh “greens,” which includes food scraps, coffee grounds and lawn clippings. (See References 1) Keep the ratio of browns to greens relatively high to help reduce odor problems (see References 3). Avoid adding meat, dairy, oils, grease and bones. These materials break down slowly and cause odors. Vermicomposting (See References 1). In worm bins, you should also avoid citrus and other high-acid foods, which can lower the pH and make Red wiggler earthworms have a voracious appetite for garbage; the worm bin inhospitable for your worms (see References 2). 2,000 worms can mow through a pound of garbage per day. Their bodies act as miniature composting units, turning out castings Pests and Odors rich in nutrients and organic matter. Vermicomposting uses worms When your compost pile sits away from your house, the occasional to recycle garbage, and you can hide a worm bin under your stinky scrap or swarm of gnats doesn’t pose much of a problem. sink or in an inconspicuous corner. Covered plastic or wooden When your compost bin resides inside your house, however, pest containers function well as worm bins. Like in a regular compost prevention and odor control become priorities. Bury any fresh bin, you provide carbon-rich bedding --- shredded newspaper, scraps under 10 inches of browns in an indoor bin or under a straw and sawdust all work well --- in addition to nitrogen-rich handful of bedding for a worm bin (see References 1, 2). Keep food scraps and yard trimmings. The worms consume both and track of what you put in and add more browns to control odors transform them into compost. if needed.
FROM WASTE TO FOOD Chris Cano and Gainesville Ccompost Interview with Chris Cano, Founder of Gainesville Compost Chris Cano started Gainesville Compost in September. This is a green initiative that recycles local restaurants’ food scraps into fertilizer by means of the compost process. He furthers his slogan “From Waste to Food” by setting up urban gardens, such as wall gardens, in the restaurants so they can actually use the compost to grow their own food. We interviewed Chris to find out more about composting, his business and the other cool stuff he is involved with.
When did you start the Gainesville Compost program? In September we did a pilot program with 5 restaurants to test this out and see what we could do. My friend had a bike trailer, so he offered to lend it to me. It didn’t make sense to use fossil fuels for an initiative that was trying to reverse the effects of fossil fuel damage. It’s a sustainable system by not using gas to pick up the food with. The trailer fits four buckets and we starting picking up food scraps from places. We build the bins out of shipping palates and that’s how it started. The approach I am taking is decentralized network. What we’re doing is making a pedalpowered community compost network. Essentially, we are working with community partners around Gainesville and at different locations; we are setting up composting bins. Our partners are getting part of the compost for their own gardens.For example, we set up a three-bin system at a local art gallery, The Church of Holy Colors. So they will get part of the compost for their garden and I will take part and use it for garden projects I am working on with other people. Essentially what we are going to start doing is selling some of it and vermicomposing, which is worm castings. Were all the restaurants pretty willing to participate in this project? Yeah, I went through friends who were working at the restaurants. And then whenever I would go to a restaurant, I would ask what they do with their waste. For the most part they would say they are throwing everything out. I would tell them ‘Hey I’m doing this composting program’ and tell them about what I am doing. Some restaurants contacted me about it. Most restaurants are interested in the composting program because it reduced their waste and it’s something they can advertise as a sustainable initiative they are doing. So the restaurants are getting a free waste removal service. What else are the restaurants getting out of it?
She started bringing me food scraps and that added a lot to my compost. It dawned on me that I could make it bigger and started collecting from different restaurants.
Were all the restaurants pretty willing to participate in this project? Yeah, I went through friends who were working at the restaurants. And then whenever I would go to a restaurant, I would ask what they do with their waste. For the most part they would say they are throwing everything out. I would tell them ‘Hey I’m doing this composting program’ and tell them about what I am doing. Some restaurants contacted me about it. Most restaurants are Yeah, they pay for waste disposal – so that’s one advantage. The interested in the composting program because it reduced their second is there is kind of a buzz around town – people really like waste and it’s something they can advertise as a sustainable this initiative; they like that it’s happening in Gainesville. It’s good initiative they are doing. publicity for the rest.
How did you get started with composting?
So the restaurants are getting a free waste removal service. What else are the restaurants getting out of it? Yeah, they pay for waste disposal – so that’s one advantage. The second is there is kind of a buzz around town – people really like this initiative; they like that it’s happening in Gainesville. It’s good publicity for the restaurants. I would eventually like to make stickers for the restaurants so they can advertise in the window that they are part of the program.
I started gardening in high school, not really knowing what I was doing. I was buying organic fertilizers, trying to learn as I went. Then I started doing research and found out about something people call “black gold.” Essentially that’s compost and you can make it from kitchen scraps. It seemed like an obviously beneficial things to do – taking kitchen scraps and turning it into fertilizer. So that’s when my interest in composting began. I did it on a small I think you mentioned earlier you were setting up gardens in the scale for a while and I got serious about it last year. restaurants? So you started with your own food scraps? Yeah, I am setting up a garden on the wall here [Interview was done at The Midnight restaurant and bar]. One of the fundamental ideas Yeah, it started with our kitchen scraps. We figured out how to do of this initiative was to take the food waste, turn it into compost it properly and once we started making it, we realized the value and bring it back to the restaurant. It will close the waste loop of it. It’s essential to have organic matter in your soil, especially and use the waste to grow food. here in Florida where all the soil is sand. You need organic matter How will the wall garden be structured?It will be a horizontal in your soil for plants. It was obviously beneficial to us in our own wooden backboard with a decorated frame around it. On that compost but we didn’t have enough food scraps for our garden. backboard, we’re mounting used two liter bottles. I’m going to use So I asked a friend of mine who worked at Bonefish Grill for waste.
about 10 to 12 of them and grow plants in there. So a portion of their food will be grown on the wall, right outside the restaurant. How does the composting process work and how long does it take to become good compost fertilizer? That’s locally grown at its best. You can get finished compost in a month and a half but it’s not Are any of the other restaurants interested in this sort of thing? completely cured. The longer you wait to break down, the better Yeah. I have talked to some about it and they are definitely it will be. It’s useable in a month and a half though. I am trying to interested. We are just getting started up and I am handling a figure out how I can use the worms to speed to process. As far lot of projects and get a lot of different things off the ground. But as the science of it, compost is a mixture of a carbon source and after the systems are set up around town, we will probably focus a nitrogen source. All the stuff that the restaurants are giving me is the nitrogen source – the wet stuff. The carbon source is dried more on the gardens. material. Our main carbon source has been bags of leaves that Are you involved in any community gardens? people leave curbside. When you mix those two together that’s There are several in Gainesville. One is the downtown farmer’s what starts the composing process. It’s essentially creating the garden. They grow their food for the needy and donate it to conditions for microbes and beneficial bacteria to start working food banks. There are about 12 to 15 different organizations and breaking it all down. Along with water and oxygen, that’s that are involved in it. It’s also a teaching garden, so kids go on what makes the whole ecology thrive in compose and break all field trips to the garden and learn how to grow food. There are the waste down. With everything working, it creates an enormous also people from FOG, Florida Organic Growers, who are very amount of heat, which aids in breaking it down. involved in that garden. The county garden has a three-bin system How hot does it get? system over there that I have been contributing food scraps to for compost fertilizer. Contributing the compost has been a cool way The piles that I am doing regularly reach and maintain a temperature to contribute to that garden. I would like to get involved in more of 140 and 145 degrees. community gardens. I have been talking with people about starting What are the benefits compost fertilizer holds over other community gardens based around the composing bins and the fertilizers?First, with non-organic fertilizers, you are dosing fertilizer produced would be the foundation of the garden. Cool. your plants with macronutrients like nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. Those are the three macronutrients your plants will Anything like this ever been done? Yeah. I have heard of pedal-powered urban agriculture initiative benefit from in the short term but you are not doing anything to in other cities. That’s one thing that inspired me – other initiative build the soil. It’s a short-term solution but not beneficial in the around the country that are doing bicycle powered CSA delivery. long term. What the goal of organic gardening should be is to build the soil. You want to bring life to the soil. That’s the ideas of How often do you have to go around to the restaurants to pick compost. It’s a long-term soil builder. up food waste? Pretty frequently. The restaurants three times a week. The smaller places, like the coffee shops, once or twice a week. We have a calendar of when we need to go and pick up the waste.
GROW YOU OWN Easy Composting Ideally site your compost bin in a reasonably sunny site on bare soil. If you have to put your compost bin on concrete, tarmac or patio slabs ensure there’s a layer of paper and twigs or existing compost on the bottom. Choose a place where you can easily add ingredients to the bin and get the compost out.
Add The Right Ingredients
Composting Is Easy It takes between nine and twelve months for your compost to become ready for use, so now all you need to do is wait and let nature do the work. Keep on adding greens and browns to top up your compost.
When Is it Ready For Use
Have a container available such as a kitchen caddy or old ice cream tub. Fill your kitchen caddy or container with everything Once your compost has turned into a crumbly, dark material, from vegetable and fruit peelings to teabags, toilet roll tubes, resembling thick, moist soil and gives off an earthy, fresh aroma, cereal boxes and eggshells. Take care not to compost cooked you know it’s ready to use. food, meat or fish.
Filling The Compost
What to do
Lift the bin slightly or open the hatch at the bottom and scoop out Empty your kitchen caddy along with your garden waste into your the fresh compost with a garden fork, spade or trowel. compost bin. A 50/50 mix of greens and browns is the perfect Don’t worry if your compost looks a little lumpy with twigs and bits recipe for good compost. of eggshell – this is perfectly normal. Use it to enrich borders and
DIVE! LIVING OFF AMERICA’S WASTE Swiss cheese, organic chicken breasts, fresh blueberries and strawberries, prosciutto and imported asparagus. These are just a few of the food items that end up in the garbage every day in the USA.
Jeremy Seifert and his group of friends live off dumpster diving, eating food from garbage cans located outside of supermarkets. The food they salvage is astounding, in fact it is so good that one friend remarks that he eats like a rich person off dumpster diving. Although at first it may be a tad stomach churning to think of eating food from a garbage can, the volume of food, in addition to the quality of items Seifert and his friends pull from garbage dumpsters, is nothing short of astounding. And the meals they make are mouth-watering to say the least.
In fact, 96 billion pounds (43.6 million tons) of food are thrown away each year in the USA. That’s 263 million pounds (119,300 tons) a day; 11 million pounds (4,990 tons) an hour and 3,000 The majority of the food the merry band of dumpster divers forage pounds (1.6 tons) a second while 854 million people in the world is comprised of slightly damaged items and foods close to their sell go hungry. Dive! by date that are thrown away by supermarkets.“There is a certain Living Off America’s Waste by first-time filmmaker Jeremy Seifert, beauty of seeing food pulled from the garbage and transforming and made with a budget of a mere US$200, explores how American into a meal with friends,” explains filmmaker Seifert. Considering grocery stores are quietly filling their dumpsters with edible food that food takes up more than 20% of landfill space in the USA, rots, while so many people in the USA go without proper access to decomposes and emits methane, it is good to see that someone is eating a small portion of America’s discarded food.“When you nutritious food. waste food you are throwing away life as it takes life to create food,” explains Dr. Timothy Jones, former director of the Garbage Project in the USA. Jones also explains that it is not just the food that is wasted, but also everything that went into growing it, including the water, the fertilizer, the petroleum to transport the food, and the greenhouse gases generated during transport. It is particularly disturbing to see just how much edible meat, considering how resource intensive it is to produce, is being thrown away in the USA. In fact, in one week of dumpster diving Seifert obtains a year’s supply of meat and poultry which prompts him to go buy a secondhand freezer to store the excess. Considering that the US practices some of the cruelest methods of factory farming in the world, it is alarming to see the magnitude of waste. Dive! Living Off America’s Waste is a poignant, and at times humorous, essay on American food waste and a rallying cry against the hunger crisis in the USA.
WHY I LOVE BIN DIVING
So here’s my first tip: Whole Foods Market in London’sKensington High Street - the glossy new store for the rich and would-be Freeganism green - is still trying to work out what it can sell to the burghers Freeganism addresses one of the grosser evils of the modern retail of Kensington. As a result, their skips are reportedly brimming. system: the fact that nearly 40% of food in the UK is thrown away. See you down Derry Street, W8. Hunter-gathering in a skip outside Marks and Spencer was about Freganism In Detail the most fun I’ve ever had writing for Observer Food Monthly (read the full piece here). The thrill combined the adrenalin buzz of a Freegans are people who employ alternative strategies for living little light shoplifting with the uplifting, slightly smug satisfaction based on limited participation in the conventional economy and of having made a protest against one of the grosser evils of the minimal consumption of resources. Freegans embrace community, modern retail system. Look at me: radical and extremely well fed. generosity, social concern, freedom, cooperation, and sharing Bin-diving is a whole lot of fun, and safer than tombstoning. But is in opposition to a society based on materialism, moral apathy, it going to end waste? One of the freegans I went bin-diving with competition, conformity, and greed. was dubious: “Of course, it isn’t really an answer to the problem of waste. We’re only diverting surplus food on its way to the After years of trying to boycott products from unethical corporations landfill: it’s no more sustainable than shopping at supermarkets.” responsible for human rights violations, environmental destruction, Which is undeniable. While I admired the freegans I met for their and animal abuse, many of us found that no matter what we determination to stay out of supermarkets, if we want real change bought we ended up supporting something deplorable. We came we have to find a better way of telling the retailers - and shoppers to realize that the problem isn’t just a few bad corporations but the entire system itself. - that the amount of waste they generate is intolerable. Greenpeace has some sensible ideas about how to do this - and how to tackle the household waste we produce ourselves. And that is the biggest part of the problem: it’s said that 30-40% of all food bought in the UK is thrown away. According to this article that figure is 50% in the States, where freeganism was born, and where food is cheaper (as a proportion of household spend) than anywhere else in the rich world. I reckoned that the wheelie bin we raided out the back of M&S held about £3,000 worth of food - all of it prime, its only fault that it was just about to reach sell-by date. We calculated that this was enough to feed 180 people. Terrible, you say, but then how do we expect retailers to satisfy our demands for a ridiculous choice of fresh produce throughout the year, and not expect some of the stock to be surplus to requirements? Most of the retailers - though not all - do their best to distribute some of their surplus food to Fareshare - and other charities that deliver surplus food to the homeless and institutions. If the supermarkets have to junk the fresh meat and fish, that’s hardly their fault - it has more to do with insurance policies and health-and-safety demands. You can’t let the supermarkets off the hook entirely, though. Their purchasing policies on fresh produce do not encourage them to order only what they need. All of the supermarkets layoff at least some of the loss on reduced-price or thrown-away food by reducing the payment to the supplier. This can often be a small farmer with a once-a-year crop of soft fruit or delicate vegetables: he can’t exactly pick up the unsold stock and try to flog it elsewhere. And some supermarkets - though not M&S, I’m told - make suppliers pay the cost of disposal. Every punnet of Scottish raspberries or Hereford asparagus I picked out of the garbage carried a story of small-farmer worries, and the fear of watching a year’s work and investment going in the bin too. But then one Norfolk tomato grower I spoke to said he was very glad his tomatoes had got as far as M&S’s shelves: in this grim summer, with hardly a salad-friendly weekend yet, most of his neighbours had to plough their salad crop back into the ground. So try a bit of bin-diving. Take your kids: it’s a lovely evening out and you’ll learn something. Not least about how little we value our food. As yet, freeganing in Britain is a matter largely of word-of -mouth: we’re nothing like as sophisticated as the freegans in the States. Freeganinfo can help you become a full-on anarchist freegan ideologue, living outside capitalism and in a spirit of love and mutual sharing - or you can use it for its amazing Dumpster Directory, a diver’s guide to scavenging opportunities in cities across the United States, complete with lists of likely hauls and best days to go. Freecycle, which has some 2.5 million members in the US and European, is a great way of passing on unwanted stuff that might otherwise go to landfill. And until freeganinfo sets up in the UK, we can log good bin-diving sites here on Word of Mouth.
Freeganism is a total boycott of an economic system where the profit motive has eclipsed ethical considerations and where massively complex systems of productions ensure that all the products we buy will have detrimental impacts most of which we may never even consider. Thus, instead of avoiding the purchase of products from one bad company only to support another, we avoid buying anything to the greatest degree we are able. The word freegan is compounded from “free” and “vegan”. Vegans are people who avoid products from animal sources or products tested on animals in an effort to avoid harming animals. Freegans take this a step further by recognizing that in a complex, industrial, mass-production economy driven by profit, abuses of humans, animals, and the earth abound at all levels of production (from acquisition to raw materials to production to transportation) and in just about every product we buy. Sweatshop labor, rainforest destruction, global warming, displacement of indigenous communities, air and water pollution, eradication of wildlife on farmland as “pests”, the violent overthrow of popularly elected governments to maintain puppet dictators compliant to big business interests, open-pit strip mining, oil drilling in environmentally sensitive areas, union busting, child slavery, and payoffs to repressive regimes are just some of the many impacts of the seemingly innocuous consumer products we consume every day. Freegans employ a range of strategies for practical living based on our principles:
Waste Reclamation We live in an economic system where sellers only value land and commodities relative to their capacity to generate profit. Consumers are constantly being bombarded with advertising telling them to discard and replace the goods they already have because this increases sales. This practice of affluent societies produces an amount of waste so enormous that many people can be fed and supported simply on its trash. As freegans we forage instead of buying to avoid being wasteful consumers ourselves, to politically challenge the injustice of allowing vital resources to be wasted while multitudes lack basic necessities like food, clothing, and shelter, and to reduce the waste going to landfills and incinerators which are disproportionately situated within poor, non-white neighborhoods, where they cause elevated levels of cancer and asthma. Perhaps the most notorious freegan strategy is what is commonly called “urban foraging” or “dumpster diving”. This technique involves rummaging through the garbage of retailers, residences, offices, and other facilities for useful goods. Despite our society’s sterotypes about garbage, the goods recovered by freegans are
safe, useable, clean, and in perfect or near-perfect condition, a symptom of a throwaway culture that encourages us to constantly replace our older goods with newer ones, and where retailers plan high-volume product disposal as part of their economic model. Some urban foragers go at it alone, others dive in groups, but we always share the discoveries openly with one another and with anyone along the way who wants them. Groups like Food Not Bombs recover foods that would otherwise go to waste and use them to prepare meals to share in public places with anyone who wishes to partake.
By recovering the discards of retailers, offices, schools, homes, hotels, or anywhere by rummaging through their trash bins, dumpsters, and trash bags, freegans are able to obtain food, beverages, books, toiletries magazines, comic books, newspapers, videos, kitchenware, appliances, music (CDs, cassettes, records, etc.), carpets, musical instruments, clothing, rollerblades, scooters, furniture, vitamins, electronics, animal care products, games, toys, bicycles, artwork, and just about any other type of consumer good. Rather than contributing to further waste, freegans curtail garbage and pollution, reducing the over-all volume in the waste stream.
Going Green We live in a society where the foods that we eat are often grown a world away, overprocessed, and then transported long distances to be stored for too long, all at a high ecological cost. Because of this process, we’ve lost appreciation for the changes in season and the cycles of life but some of us are reconnecting to the Earth through gardening and wild foraging. Many urban ecologists have been turning garbage-filled abandoned lots into verdant community garden plots. In neighborhoods where stores are more likely to carry junk food than fresh greens, community gardens provide a health food source. Where the air is choked with asthma inducing pollutants, the trees in community gardens produce oxygen. In landscapes dominated by brick, concrete, and asphalt, community gardens provide an oasis of plants, open spaces, and places for communities to come together, work together, share food, grow together, and break down the barriers that keep people apart in a society where we have all become too isolated from one another.
Lots of used items can also be found for free or shared with others on websites like Freecycle and in the free section of your local Craigslist. To dispose of useful materials check out the EPA’s Materials and Waste Exchanges directory. In communities around the country, people are holding events like “Really, Really, Free Markets” and “Freemeets”. These events are akin to flea markets with free items. People bring items to share with others. They give and take but not a dollar is exchanged. When freegans do need to buy, we buy second-hand goods which reduces production and supports reusing and reducing what would have been wasted Wild foragers demonstrate that we can feed ourselves without without providing any additional funds for new production. supermarkets and treat our illnesses without pharmacies by Waste minimization familiarizing ourselves with the edible and medicinal plants growing Because of our frequent sojourns into the discards our throwaway all around us. Even city parks can yield useful foods and medicines, society, freegans are very aware of and disgusted by the enormous giving us a renewed appreciation of the reality that our sustenance amounts of waste the average US consumer generates and thus comes ultimately not from corporate food producers, but from the choose not to be a part of the problem. So, freegans scrupulously Earth itself. Others take the foraging lifestyle even farther, removing recycle, compost organic matter into topsoil, and repair rather themselves from urban and suburban concepts and attempting than replace items whenever possible. Anything unusable by us, to “go feral” by building communities in the wilderness based on we redistribute to our friends, at freemarkets, or using internet primitive survival skills. services like freecycle and craigslist.
Working Less
How much of our lives do we sacrifice to pay bills and buy more stuff? For most of us, work means sacrificing our freedom to take Freegans recognize the disastrous social and ecological impacts orders from someone else, stress, boredom, monotony, and in of the automobile. We all know that automobiles cause pollution many cases risks to our physical and psychological well-being. created from the burning of petroleum but we usually don’t think of Once we realize that it’s not a few bad products or a few egregious the other destruction factors like forests being eliminated from road companies responsible for the social and ecological abuses in building in wilderness areas and collision deaths of humans and our world but rather the entire system we are working in, we begin wildlife. As well, the massive oil use today creates the economic to realize that, as workers, we are cogs in a machine of violence, impetus for slaughter in Iraq and all over the world. Therefore, death, exploitation, and destruction. Is the retail clerk who rings up freegans choose not to use cars for the most part. Rather, we use a cut of veal any less responsible for the cruelty of factory farming other methods of transportation including trainhopping, hitchhiking, than the farm worker? What about the ad designer who finds ways walking, skating, and biking. Hitchhiking fills up room in a car that to make the product palatable? How about the accountant who would have been unused otherwise and therefore it does not add does the grocery books and allows it to stay in business? Or the to the overall consumption of cars and gasoline. worker in the factory that manufacturers refrigerator cases? And, Some freegans find at least some use of cars unavoidable so of course, the high level managers of the corporations bear the we try to eliminate our dependence on fossil fuels by using cars greatest responsibility of all for they make the decisions which with diesel engines converted to run on biodiesel or “veggie-oil” causes the destruction and waste. You don’t have to own stock in a literally fueling our cars with used fryer oil from restaurants – corporation or own a factory or chemical plant to be held to blame. another example of diverting waste for practical use. Volunteer By accounting for the basic necessities of food, clothing, housing, groups are forming everywhere to assist people in converting furniture, and transportation without spending a dime, freegans diesel engines to run on vegetable oil. are able to greatly reduce or altogether eliminate the need to constantly be employed. We can instead devote our time to Rent-Free Housing caring for our families, volunteering in our communities, and joining activist groups to fight the practices of the corporations Freegans believe that housing is a RIGHT. Just as freegans who would otherwise be bossing us around at work. For some, consider it an atrocity for people to starve while food is thrown total unemployment isn’t an option it’s far harder to find free away, we are also outraged that people literally freeze to death dental surgery than a free bookcase on the curb but by limiting on the streets while others prosper. our financial needs, even those of us who need to work can place Squatters are people who occupy and rehabilitate abandoned, conscious limits on how much we work, take control of our lives, decrepit buildings. Squatters believe that real human needs are and escape the constant pressure to make ends meet. But even more important than abstract notions of private property, and that if we must work, we need not cede total control to the bosses. those who hold deed to buildings but won’t allow people to live in The freegan spirit of cooperative empowerment can be extended them, even in places where housing is vitally needed, don’t deserve into the workplace as part of worker-led unions like the Industrial to own those buildings. In addition to living areas, squatters Workers of the World. often convert abandoned buildings into community centers with programs including art activities for children, environmental education, meetings of community organizations, and more.
Eco-friendly Transportation
LOWDOWN ON DUMPSTER DIVING Tips Of The Trade Food waste is food that is discarded or lost uneaten. As of 2011, 1.3 billion tons of food, about one third of the global food production, are lost or wasted annually. Loss and wastage occurs on all steps in the food supply chain. In low-income countries, most loss occurs during production, while in developed countries much food – about 100 kilograms (220 lb) per person and year – is wasted at the consumption stage. 1. Know your local laws. In many jurisdictions trash is not considered private property, so dumpster divers cannot be charged with theft, however, some municipalities have ordinances prohibiting scavenging trash, most notably in the United Kingdom. Australian Law reflects a thinly disguised intolerance of the practice. Dumpster divers may run afoul of laws regarding trespassing, invasion of privacy, environmental, or even in some cases “Theft”. In addition police in most states have “move On” powers that are often brought to bare on salvagers. Research the laws in your area or contact your local police department to inquire about the legality of diving practices.
2. Prepare yourself mentally and adapt your methods to avoid practices you see as disgusting. If you’re still put off by sifting through trash, consider scavenging only items placed with trash but not in rubbish bins, such as furniture and sometimes crates of food. 3. Network with other divers. As you get into dumpster diving, you’ll likely meet other divers, and many, but not all, will be friendly and helpful. Share tips and experiences and you’ll probably get some good tips in return. Consider joining an online dumpster diving forum or a local club. Other divers can keep a look out for items that you want. 4. Find the dumpsters in your area and keep track of when you find the best items and when the garbage collectors come. In residential areas, find out standard move-in and move-out dates. 5. Plan your diving according to what you’re looking for. If you’re just looking for unexpected treasures, you can look pretty much anywhere, but if you want something like food, search behind grocery stores and bakeries. Most stores throw out food at the expiration date, though much of it is still good, only a little past its peak. Look for larger items like furniture or electronic items sitting next to trash cans. Look online at dumpster diving forums for tips on where to go in your area. 6. Wear appropriate clothing. Wear protective gloves, long-sleeve shirts and pants to protect you from dirt and cuts. If you’re going to actually enter a dumpster, wear sturdy fabrics such as denim, and cover as much of your body as possible. Protect your feet by wearing thick, fully-enclosed shoes or boots. Wear clothes that you don’t care too much about. 7. Equip yourself. At the very least carry a milk crate or stepping stool to help you see and access the contents of dumpsters and bring plastic bags to hold your treasures. Also be sure to bring a flashlight if you’re diving at night. Remember that you don’t have to dive right into a dumpster — bring along a long pole to poke around with or one with a grabbing apparatus on the end, and you may not need to venture in at all. 8. Make sure no one is around and keep a look out. Dumpster diving is somewhat controversial, and divers are frequently confronted by shopkeepers or homeowners. While a confrontation is no big deal if handled properly, you should still try to avoid it. If you see people in the area, wait a while. 9. Handle with care. Be very careful when handling trash or entering dumpsters. Broken glass and sharp objects can cut you, and you could be poked by a used needle. Protective clothing can somewhat help avoid these dangers, but you should always exercise caution when rummaging through bags of trash. 10 .Take only what you need and can realistically use. Take what you can use, but remember that there are a lot of dumpster divers, and someone may have a dire need for something that you’ll just leave sitting in your garage. 11 .Clean up after yourself. If you’ve thrown garbage all around, pick it up and put it back into the dumpster. While you’re at it, throw away other nearby trash that’s on the ground. Leave the area as clean or cleaner than you found it — don’t give dumpster diving a bad name. 12. Clean items thoroughly. Cleaning is especially important with food. Check packaged items for holes and leaks and take special care to wash produce, preferably in a mild bleach and water solution. The food you buy in grocery stores is usually treated in this way anyway, so this isn’t a drastic step. 13. Clean yourself thoroughly. Take a good shower with soap to wash the dirt and germs off.
How to make a fold up Bread Wallet This is the layout for a fold up wallet. Got to www.aweight1.gdnm.org To see the video and further instructions. Firts start by folding along all of the red lines
BEAD BIN British households throw away 4.4m tonnes of edible food a year, estimates suggest - and bread is the most wasted provision of all. But why?
Household purchased food waste: Bread 32% Vegetables 24% Potatoes 24% Fruit 20% Cereal products 17% Desserts 14% Meat and fish 13% Dairy and eggs 8.5% Soft drinks 7.1% Alcoholic drinks 6.3%
It’s a staple part of many diets forming the basis of breakfast as toast, popping up as a main lunch ingredient, and then appearing at dinner or supper as an accompaniment to soup or stew. But despite its ease and enduring appeal, 32% of bread purchased by UK households is dumped when it could be eaten, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) figures show. According to research by anti-food waste organisation Wrap, 680,000 tonnes of “avoidable” bakery waste is disposed of each year at a cost of £1.1bn, about 80% of it from packs that have been opened but not finished. “Freegan” Mark Boyle sees plenty of bread in rubbish bins when looking for free food, and thinks people have lost touch with the bread-making process. “If you make something yourself, you’ve spent half an hour kneading the bread and then baking it, you don’t waste that bread because you know how much energy you’ve put into it,” he says. “But if you can pick up a loaf of bread for about 20p at the end of a day from a supermarket... then you don’t have the same respect for what you’re consuming.”
So-called “rag-pickers” in Paris in the 1880s never wasted any bread scraps - they ate any clean bread they were given or sold it on to tradespeople, and used dirty bread to feed animals or as breadcrumbs that were sold back to restaurants.
eating satisfaction, a handmade loaf of real bread and massproduced bread are completely different products.”
“You could probably feed a huge amount of people from one bin at a supermarket for an evening or two evenings if the bread kept.”
Wrap says the majority of bakery products (more than 80%) are thrown away because they have not been used in time; either before going past their bestbefore date or being judged as having “gone off”.
As well as buying too much, Wrap says keeping bread in the fridge is one of the reasons so much is thrown away.
But these days people do not go to such lengths to use up every crumb. Chris Young from the Real Bread Campaign believes the price of white sandwich loaf, known as Chorleywood bread, (which It found most consumers accounts for 80% of the UK’s bread) believed that bread only is what has eroded respect for bread. lasted three to four days, yet in “People just don’t value factory loaf, they trials people could not tell the difference between two- and sixjust don’t care about it anymore. day-old bread. “None of the bread that is thrown away is “real” bread, homemade or artisan Hovis bread carried out a bread. project in 2008 in conjunction “If bread has better flavours and costs with Wrap to see why people more, it is less likely to be thrown away.” wasted pre-packed bread and But Mark Newman, an artisan baker who bakery goods. runs Mark’s Bread in south Bristol, says people “are often restricted by what they have in their pockets”.
Mark Newman says: “The worst thing you can do is put it in the fridge - at 5C it goes stale very quickly. But you can refresh bread by splashing it with a bit of cold water and reheating it, it will bring the crust back to life.” He recommends trying sourdough, which keeps for up to a week, or using a bread bin or cloth bag to keep bread. Another way to reduce wastage is to freeze bread - so why are people not doing that?
Ian Bowles says: “People do have this perception that when you freeze bread you’re not going to get the same quality Ian Bowles, group head of of freshness. Sustainability at Premier Foods, “If you’ve got a lot of bread left over, then which owns Hovis, says the you can just freeze it.” figures suggest people buy more than they need.
He adds: “In this country, the craft bakery has died away with the growth of machine methods and the Chorleywood “It’s a reasonably low-priced method. commodity and rather than run “Since the ‘60s, people have become out, they prefer to have too much used to buying supermarket bread than too little. with additives, but I think people “It’s like milk on a morning, you are becoming more aware of buying don’t really want to run out of milk bread made in an artisan way without and so you always make sure additives.” you’ve got plenty in. It’s just the His loaves take up to 18 hours from start staples that people don’t want to finish, but he says it is this time and to run out of.” care that give them stronger textures It is not just households that and flavours. can’t get through their bread, says Mark Boyle. Continue reading the main story “Every time you go [through 20th Century history of bread “I can’t compete with the cheapest white- rubbish] there’s different things sliced loaf, but in terms of nutrition and in the bin, but bread definitely is the number one,” he says.
MONEY DOESNT GROW ON TREES
Buy loose fruits and vegetables instead of prepacked, then you can buy exactly the amount you need. Choose meats and cheese from a deli so that you can buy what you want.
9. Freeze! If you only eat a small amount of bread, then freeze it when you Each month, the average family throws away £50 of good food get home and take out a few slices a couple of hours before you need them. Likewise, batch cook foods so that you have meals that was bought but not eaten. Even though official government figures say the cost of living has ready for those evenings when you are too tired to cook. risen by just 2.5 percent in the past year, other reports suggest 10. Turn it into garden food. our food bills are expanding almost as quickly as our waistlines. Some food waste is unavoidable, so why not set up a compost But despite the fact we’re spending more than ever on food, another bin for fruit and vegetable peelings? In a few months you will study has also revealed we’re wasting more food than ever, too. end up with rich, valuable compost for your plants. If you have The report from the government’s Waste & Resources Action cooked food waste, then a kitchen composter (bokashi bin) will Programme shows that UK families throw out 27 percent of the do the trick. Just feed it with your scraps (you can even put fish food they purchase, wasting a massive £610 per year. That adds and meat in it), sprinkle over a layer of special microbes and leave up to more than £10 billion pounds of food being binned every to ferment. The resulting product can be used on houseplants year in the UK! And just as price hikes have particularly affected and in the garden.
You Can Help
healthier foods, ironically, it’s these foods we’re most likely to chuck. Every day we throw away 4.4 million apples, 1.6 million bananas, 1.3 million pots of yogurts, 7 million slices of bread, 2.8 million tomatoes, 5.1 million potatoes, 4.4 million bread rolls, 1 million slices of ham, and more than half a million eggs. So assuming our annual grocery bill costs us an extra £1,040 and then we bin £610 worth of food each year, on average, we’re potentially wasting a massive £1,650 a year on groceries – and most of this tends to be foods that ultimately will help us reduce our waistlines and the money we waste on food. The result: neither our bank balance or figure benefits! Fortunately though, by scrutinising shopping lists, planning meals more carefully, reducing food waste and learning how to keep food at its best, it’s possible to make a massive dent in both our wallets and our waistlines. 1. Write a list! Menu plan your meals for a week. Check the ingredients in your fridge and cupboards, then write a shopping list for just the extras you need. 2. Stick to the list! Take your list with you and stick to it when you’re in the store. Don’t be tempted by offers and don’t shop when you’re hungry — you’ll come back with more than you need. 3. Keep a healthy fridge. Check that the seals on your fridge are good and check the fridge temperature too. Food needs to be stored between 1 and 5 degrees Celsius for maximum freshness and longevity. 4. Don’t throw it away! Fruit that is just going soft can be made into smoothies or fruit pies. Vegetables that are starting to wilt can be made into soup. 5. Use up your leftovers. Instead of scraping leftovers into the bin, why not use them for tomorrow’s ingredients? A bit of tuna could be added to pasta and made into a pasta bake. A tablespoon of cooked vegetables can be the base for a crock pot meal. 6. Rotate. When you buy new food from the store, bring all the older items in your cupboards and fridge to the front. Put the new food towards the back and you run less risk of finding something moldy at the back of your food stores! 7. Serve small amounts. Serve small amounts of food with the understanding that everybody can come back for more once they’ve cleared their plate. This is especially helpful for children, who rarely estimate how much they can eat at once. Any leftovers can be cooled, stored in the fridge and used another day. 8. Buy what you need.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT... SO STOP WASTING YOUR’S.