What grandparents can teach us about reducing food waste

Before the era of supermarkets, seasonal shopping and health buzzwords, our grandparents reduced food waste not because they wanted to, but because they had to.

Cutting waste: Rebecca Sullivan with grandmother Pauline.

With public awareness of food sustainability on the rise, their experience remains as relevant today as it was 70 years ago.

Evacuated during the Second World War from London to a farm in rural Wiltshire, Pauline Tee grew up not taking a single meal for granted.

Ms Tee said meat in particular was a privilege and every scrap would be used.

Read the ABC News story by Dominic Cansdale and Megan Whitfield - “What grandparents can teach us about reducing food waste.”

Old factory to make power for new

A Goulburn Valley businessman is working on a novel energy project which will use food waste to generate power for a new dairy factory.

The site of the new power plant.

Ian Bertram has received a Victorian Government grant towards the project based at the former Heinz factory at Girgarre which was once a cheese factory.

Australian Consolidated Milk is planning to build a new dairy factory on a green-field site next to the old facility this year and may be the power generator’s best customer.

Read the Country News story - “Old factory to make power for new.”

Waste not, want not: top 5 tips to save food, money and the planet

Food waste - it's a global problem.

When you tuck in to your lunch today, you’re probably not thinking about where the grain was grown to make the bread in your sandwich, or how much water was used to grow the tomato in your salad, or whether the beef in your meat pie contributed to increased greenhouse gases.

You’re also probably not thinking about how changes in our climate might affect the production of these foods in the future. But you might spare a thought for those that go hungry every day and how lucky you are to have access to nutritious, fresh and tasty food in your tummy.

World Food Day is celebrated every year on 16 October to remind us that we need to ensure food security as the global population increases and as the climate changes. It also prompts us to think about the links between the world’s poorest who don’t have access to enough food, the need for more sustainable agriculture practices and the importance of minimising food waste.

Read the story by Nikki Galovic on the CSIRO blog - “Waste not, want not: top 5 tips to save food, money and the planet.”

 

Converting food waste into useful energy

In California, one county is converting food waste into useful energy.

When food scraps break down in a traditional landfill, they release methane, a potent heat-trapping gas. So Sacramento County now requires food manufacturers, cafeterias, and other large producers to separate food waste from the rest of their trash.

The food scraps are then sent to a digester – a sealed environment where the methane can be captured as the food breaks down.

The methane is then used to create renewable electricity or fuel that can power diesel vehicles. What’s left is compost that is sold to farms.

Read the Yale Climate Connections story - “Diverting Food Wastes from Landfills to Useful Energy.”

Avoiding food waste could help mitigate climate change

The production of food is one of the major
drivers of climate change, but we
waste about one-third of what we produce.

It’s easy not to think about food waste when your rotting tomatoes and days-old casserole dishes are hidden away in the back of the refrigerator—out of sight, out of mind. But when it comes time to clean it out, you have to face a lot of waste food, money and the resources that took to produce it.

While food waste has made a rapid rise in terms of public awareness recently, new research suggests that the future effect could end up accelerating climate change at a worrisome rate in coming years.

According to a study released Thursday by Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, food waste could account for about a tenth of global greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

“Agriculture is a major driver of climate change, accounting for more than 20 percent of overall global greenhouse-gas emissions in 2010,” Prajal Pradhan, one of the study’s authors, said in a statement. “Avoiding food loss and waste would therefore avoid unnecessary greenhouse-gas emissions and help mitigate climate change.”

Read the EcoWatch story - “One-Third of Global Food Production Never Finds Its Way Onto Our Plate.”

Food waste among worst of greenhouse gas emitters

“F

ood waste generates 3.3 billion tons of greenhouse gases annually, and that makes food wastage the third top emitter after USA and China.”

In this World Economic Forum IdeasLab video, captured during the Annual Meeting of the New Champions 2015, Professor Laura Nyström from ETH Zurich, talks about the global damaging effects of food waste.

Watch the video here - “How food waste is killing our planet”.