It’s so gross and hypocritical to frame food waste as a personal failing. Like, people are dying of hunger because someone forgot some leftovers at the back of their fridge and ended up throwing them away. Major chain grocery stores throw away millions of pounds of food because it’s “too much work” to donate it, and then poison it and destroy it when they throw it away to punish dumpster diving.
Waste is not a personal failing. It’s engineered by corporations, and they profit off of obscuring that.
Much like water waste – shaming a dripping bathroom faucet for wasting water, while hundreds of gallons get wasted in industrial settings.
Always be suspicious of micro-focused framing of environmental issues, when there’s the possibility of macro-level issues hiding behind them.
(Sorry if this is only tangentially biology, but I minored in sustainability and reducing food waste is a great way to be a friend to the environment, farm animals, and wildlife.)
Once when I was working at a Salesforce conference in SF, just answering questions for people, one of the vendors came up at the end of the day and said “Do you know if there’s a food bank around here? I want to donate these. Except, I don’t want a homeless person to choke on these and sue me.” What she was holding was a small bowl of promotional breathmints. I think that conversation was very emblematic of how people don’t understand how food waste works. Here’s a breakdown:
1. No one wants your half-eaten sandwich, your crumbs, or your food-like substance. Mints aren’t even food. Try to avoid that kind of food waste, and if you can’t help it, accept that a certain amount of personal waste of all items is a reality. You should see what happens to your clothes. (Rarely does anyone want that, either.)
2. Even if it was good food, it is very difficult to organize food donation. When I worked at Google we threw away about 40 fully-prepared meals a day, just from my 3-person project (idk what they do with the cafeteria food.) Everyone who walked in to the studio said “you should donate that to a homeless person.” Well there weren’t any homeless people hanging out at the Google Maps building, so are you volunteering to drive food around until you find one? I bet just about everyone is shocked the first time they work with food that TONS of it gets thrown away. I contacted Food Recovery Network to try to organize a daily pickup, but it never happened before the project went on the road–which I anticipated. You just cannot poof extra food into a needy person’s hands!
3. I’ve heard this “a homeless person will choke and sue me” too many times. Store owners waive it off and say “legal issues,” meaning “phew, I don’t have to actually explain why we throw this food away.” But someone choking on food or faking sick in order to sue the donor HAS NEVER HAPPENED. It WOULD NEVER happen. The Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act protects all donors who give food in good faith from liability. Even before that, it would be absurd to sue someone because you choked on a free sandwich, unless you they were actually trying to hurt you by filling it full of legos or something. You know you can choke on sandwiches that you paid for too, right?
4. I also want to point out–you don’t have to be homeless to use a food bank. If you are hungry, having some trouble this month, or worried about making rent, in some states and counties food banks can’t turn you away or even legally ask you qualifying questions. You don’t have to wait until you are in dire straights before utilizing these services. They hope to prevent you from getting in too deep. Sometimes they have TONS of a certain item, like maybe potatoes if you’re in Idaho, and bread and bagels everywhere in my experience, that they’re more than happy to get rid of. Also, don’t think of people who use food banks as failures, and don’t think of it as a defeat if that’s you. Some people get help from rich partners and parents, some get it from good jobs, some get it from food banks. Everyone gets help in their life and everyone deserves to eat.
So what can you do to prevent food waste? There are different organizations, depending on where you live and what you do. You can print out Bill Emerson and tell your boss at the grocery store that you can donate food, and these Good Samaritan laws were passed in 1996 so people should know that by now. But people at the grocery store want minimal work, so see if you can organize the food van to pick up the extras on a schedule. You can support legislation and NGO’s that are working on streamlining food waste reduction. Look for Meetup.com dumpster diving groups, freegans, and food donation apps.
You can find your local food-redistribution charity, and they are more likely to know how to utilize your time. Since I lived in the SF East Bay, I know there is the White Pony Express which drives around collecting food from restaurants and grocery stores and donating it. There are organizations like Food Forward and the Food Recovery Network on the West Coast. Food Not Bombs is fairly common across the US and the world, so see if there’s one of those nearby you.
And lastly, if you have an extra pizza, just give it to your roommates or co-workers. You can ask them to donate the $5 they would have spent to a charity, because the charity is much happier with money than the pizza. Or just use that $5 to pay off your loans quicker.
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