A Climate Hawk’s Companion – food waste diversion as a climate action

It has been clear for a while that meat consumption has an out-sized climate impact. That pound of hamburger on your counter top represents a large investment of fossil fuels. But what about everything else we eat, and perhaps more importantly, everything else we don’t eat?  Less thought has been given to the topic of wasted food. First off, let’s be clear that it is an outrage all on its own that food is thrown away from our tables when the world is full of hungry people, that goes without saying.  For today let's focus on the climate impact of all that wasted food. When you think about it, energy, water and chemical fertilizers go into the production, the storage and transportation of everything on our tables, from fruits to vegetables and grains. Think of the tractor and irrigation system on the farm, or the industrial machine located wherever they crank out the Captain Crunch cereal, transportation in big diesel trucks to that refrigerator in your basement. To the extent that food is not consumed, it represents wasted energy with an associated (and completely unnecessary) carbon footprint. In fact, the EPA estimates that 21% of the garbage headed for US landfills is wasted food. The story gets even worse, since that organic waste will often turn into methane in the landfill. (Keep in mind that methane has20-25 times the global warming impact of CO2!) Recently the U.S. joined the U.N. in launching programs to combat food waste. Fortunately, right here in Arlington we already have a great model for doing just that. Our guest on this edition of the Climate Hawk Companion is DeAnne Dupont, has been walking the talk, and was instrumental in establishing a Food Recovery Project as a collaboration between the Minute Man High School Parent's Association and Sustainable Arlington. The project  collects from Panera Breads, Trader Joe’s and other local businesses in the Arlington, Massachusetts area and distributes it to people who need this food.  This makes for a better community and fewer greenhouse gases.  Listen to the podcast to catch up on how it all works.