Anyone Can Find This Food Waste In Their Neighborhood From Where?
My friend Dane and I are on a mission to highlight the significant amount of food waste in America, and we know that we’ve got to come up with some creative ways to get America’s attention. So we decided to make a huge public display of what we uncovered in the dumpsters of Madison, Wisconsin.
In just 48 hours of casual dumpster diving, we managed to collect thousands of dollars’ worth of delicious food, which you see here. Looking at this photo myself, it’s still hard for me to believe that every bit of this food came from dumpsters.
It’s all clean. It all smells great. It’s all delicious food. I mean, come on; you would never guess that any of this came from dumpsters. Our intention for the evening was to make a shocking visual display of food waste, but boy, did it ever go further than that.
This Food Waste From Where?
Reporters from around the city joined us to help spread the word about food waste. Madison’s ABC, CNN, and Fox channels came out to report on the story, as well as The Capital Times. They were all blown away by what we’d uncovered, and their stories have been seen by Wisconsinites across the state.
Friends and new friends came by, and we spent the evening together, enjoying the food and chatting with the passersby who were curious about what was happening. Not a single person ever guessed that it was from a dumpster. It was just too pretty.
We had 100′s of pounds of food and we expected to have a lot of work to do at the end of the night to get rid of it but towards the middle of the evening, something beautiful started to happen. People began to take some food.
Then more people came and filled up whole bags to take home with them. Then an eleven-year-old boy and his mom ran around town telling people to go to the park to get free food, and more people showed up.
Box by box, the food was taken, and each person walked away with a smile, excited about their share of the bounty. This simple act by my friends and me saved people $1,000′s of dollars, diverted 100′s of pounds of food from the landfill, inspired many people to end the waste, and proved to be a freakin’ blast!
You see, food is life, and life is too precious to waste. At a time when 1 in 7 Americans is food insecure, it is shameful to throw food into dumpsters. It’s a waste of money, as well as precious resources such as energy, water, and fossil fuels, and it is a waste of life. So, we’re taking action. Because we care about our fellow Americans, and we know that you do too. And we care about everyone who lives on earth, and we know that you do too.
#WastefulUSA and #WastefulWI
We’ve started a citizen patrol to call out grocery stores and hold them accountable for their waste management practices. We are calling on you to take out your smartphones and peek into the dumpsters of the nearby supermarkets and restaurants.
You don’t even have to get in the dumpster to be a part of this movement. If you find wastefulness, take a photo, upload it to social media with #WastefulUSA (or #WastefulWI in Wisconsin), and tweet and tag the wasteful companies. Let them know we are not ok with them wasting food when there are hungry people out there. We are not ok with them wasting our future!
What can grocery stores and supermarkets do to be a part of the solution??
1. Create less waste in the first place by managing inventory better and being ok with aesthetic imperfections in food.
2. Give away excess food. They can donate it to non-profits and food banks, which can distribute it to people in need, and they can also give it to their employees. This is a good business, and it will improve the lives of people in their communities.
Grocery stores and restaurants are protected from legal liability by the Good Samaritan Food Act, and thousands of stores all over the country are already doing this.
3. If food does need to be discarded compost it or give it to a farmer as animal feed instead of sending it to landfills.
There is no good reason that any store can’t do this. We know these are businesses and it all comes down to profitability but we are calling on them to operate on the triple bottom line and that is people, planet, and profit. It is their responsibility and it is now our responsibility to hold them accountable.
To lead by example and raise awareness I’ve donated the last $421 I have with me to Food Shift and I’m cycling moneyless to New York City living solely on dumpster food for the next month and a half. I’ll be calling out wasteful companies along the way and spreading the word via local news and media and social media. All are welcome to join me from wherever you are or you can even bike with me to NYC.
