I wish I heard more stories like this. Locally, outlets of the Starbuck's coffee chain have implemented a food recovery program. Every night, refrigerated trucks make the rounds of Starbuck's picking up soon-to-be expired foods. The food is inspected for spoilage, loaded up, then delivered to six different local food relief programs. It started with 30 Starbuck's and has expanded to 187.
So far, the program has distributed 320,000 pounds of Starbuck's food. The program has started to pick up food from other establishments besides Starbuck's, and there is talk of expanding the program beyond San Diego. One thing that this story omitted is that all this saved food reduces climate change. Every morsel of food has a carbon footprint; so every mushroom, barbecued chicken wing, or bean burrito that winds up in the landfill is carbon needlessly going up into the atmosphere. We are far from where we need to be on this, such as how the French have outlawed food waste at their supermarkets, but it is a great move forward.
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December 2017
CategoriesAuthorPaul Hormick is the founder of South Park Climate Solutions. He sees climate change as one of our central concerns, for ecologies as well as societies. He holds a master's degree in Environmental Science and Policy from Johns Hopkins University |