Fighting Food Waste, One Sector at a Time

America is one of the largest offenders of food waste in the world, according to a recent survey. Every year, roughly 1.3 billion tons of food is thrown out worldwide, a considerable problem given that agriculture contributes about 22 percent of the planet’s greenhouse gas emissions and 12.7 million people go hungry in America alone. Entrepreneurs across several sectors have created ways to repurpose food. Their efforts are admirable and economical, but the biggest difference will be if you make food waste reduction a daily habit.

Recovered food from the University of Denver Food Recovery Network chapter.

On College Campuses

On average, a student who lives in university housing throws out 141 pounds of food per year. Multiply that by the number of residential colleges around the country, and it becomes a huge problem, says Regina Northouse, executive director for the Food Recovery Network, the only nonprofit dealing specifically with campus food waste.
WATCH: How Much Food Could Be Rescued If College Dining Halls Saved Their Leftovers?
Northouse’s group reduces waste by enlisting the help of student volunteers at 226 universities. This manpower shuttles still-edible food from dining halls that would otherwise be thrown out to local nonprofits fighting hunger. Northouse estimates that since 2011, Food Recovery Network has fed 150,000 food-insecure people.

Through the box-subscription company Hungry Harvest, farmers sell “ugly food” to consumers instead of tossing the unsightly produce out.

On Farms

If a carrot isn’t quite orange enough, odds are it’ll be tossed. Blemishes and unattractive produce make up nearly 40 percent of discarded food, according to a 2012 study by the Natural Resources Defense Council. Though some unused fruits and veggies can be sent to food manufacturers, farmers lose profits from about a quarter of their crops because of cosmetic imperfections. To put money back into their pockets, box subscriptions services, such as Hungry Harvest, have found their way into the ugly food market.
“We started out with 10 customers at a stand,” says Stacy Carroll, director of partnerships for Hungry Harvest. “We now have thousands of customers every week buying thousands of pounds of food that would, in the past, have been thrown away.”
Roughly 10,000 subscribers along the East Coast receive weekly boxes of recovered produce from the Baltimore-based company (which was started by the founders of Food Recovery Network). In addition, food insecure families who use SNAP benefits can purchase boxes at 10 Hungry Harvest sites. All in all, the organization redistributes between 60,000 and 80,000 pounds of food through its subscription service each week.

MealConnect provides a platform for retailers to redistribute unsold produce to those in need.

At Food Retailers

For merchants, food wasted is also money wasted. Across the U.S., the cost of tossing food runs upward of $165 billion annually.
MealConnect, a tech platform launched in April by Feeding America (a nationwide network of food banks), allows retailers to post surplus meals and unused produce on its app, which then notifies local food banks workers to pick it up and redistribute it to those in need. The company has recovered 333 million pounds of food by working with large retailers like Walmart and Starbucks. MealConnect also allows merchants to recoup some of their outlays (via tax deductions).

Chef Dan Barber’s wastED pop-ups challenged chefs to create innovate dishes using produce that otherwise would have been thrown out.

In Restaurants

In 2015, the aptly named food popup wastED found itself in the heart of a media frenzy because of what was on the menu: trashed food. 
Since then, a handful of other restaurants in urban areas across the world have used recovered produce in their meals.
“We’re offering our cooks the opportunity to be creative and come up with menus instead,” says Brooklyn, N.Y., chef Przemek Adolf, owner of Saucy By Nature, which uses leftovers from previous catering events to create daily lunch and dinner specials.

The USDA’s FoodKeeper app educates consumers on how to extend the shelf life of stored foods.

In Your Own Kitchen

Individual families throw away nearly $1,600 worth of food per year, according to the EPA, which has spurred the federal government to step in and help.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture created the app FoodKeeper, which informs consumers on how long an apple can last in the fridge, for example, and proper food storage techniques to extend shelf life. It also sends out reminder alerts to use up food that’s in danger of spoiling. The desired outcome? People changing their behaviors, ultimately buying less and consuming what they do purchase.
 

Meet the Guys Tackling Sexual Assault on Campus

While most twenty-something males are concerned with the athletics, girls and grades, Eric Barthold has something else on his mind: stopping sexual violence on college campuses.
Since 2010, Barthold’s Mules Against Violence (MULES) has been raising awareness among Maine’s Colby College student body about the issue. The idea came to Barthold one day while sitting in his “Boys to Men” class where a girl was presenting research concerning sexual assault on campus. In that moment, Barthold realized something needed to be done and that it had to start with men.
Originally, he and two other students formed the group Male Athletes Against Violence, but they changed the name to accommodate female members. (The mule is the school’s mascot.) With that, the group set on their mission to educate the student body and “challenge male athlete stereotypes,” according to Collectively.
So far, group activities include joining the college’s Quilting Club to knit a giant quilt in the middle of the Student Center and encouraging male athletes to attend the Take Back the Night rally every year.
Unique to MULES, though, is the Man Box activity. This hour-long presentation, which targets men, starts with one simple question: What does it take to be a ‘real’ man? From there, a conceptual box is drawn with the responses being written inside it. On the outside are the answers to the question about what characteristics aren’t thought of as being associated with men.
“You almost always get: strong, powerful, controlling, drinks beer or can hold his alcohol, can get lots of girls, heterosexual, no emotions,” Barthold tells Collectively.
On the outside, though, are all the traits that aren’t considered masculine, such as emotional, sensitive, caring, drives a Prius or skinny jeans.
“The exercise shows the anxiety that guys feel to be manly,” Barthold explains. “If they’re in the box, they’re OK. But if they fall outside the box, they get targeted.”
The final questions Barthold asks the group concern how men protect themselves from being perpetrators of sexual violence and how women protect themselves from being victims. While the men have an answer about women, they can’t answer it about themselves.
Due to the success of his program, Barthold has expanded it to all-boys middle and high schools with the hopes of starting change at a younger age.
MORE: How to Fix Alaska’s Culture of Sexual Violence

These 3 Schools Are Earning an A in ‘Green’

Located on college campuses nation are are dorms, academic buildings, dining halls and a student union. And now, as Americans develop a green conscience, universities and millennials are jumping into the fray by practicing sustainable agriculture right on campus.
While numerous colleges across the country have community gardens, here are some of the standouts.
Pomona College Organic Farm
The long growing season in California makes it the perfect place for a campus garden. At the Pomona College Organic Farm, land is used for class as well as business. Started in 2005, the farm is part of the college’s Environmental Analysis program.
As part of the curriculum, students have the opportunity to not only maintain the plots, but also test real soil for soil sciences courses. Further, students use the farm as a tool when writing theses in areas such as politics, environmental science and science.  On the business end, students operate a bi-weekly farms stand where the food is sold to those in the area.
Naira de Gracia is a recent graduate of the college and local farm manager.
“That’s the whole point of the farm; to invent and innovate and experiment,” de Grazia tells Sustainable Cities Collective. “I’m always discovering new alums who have done something awesome, who say they only were able to do this because of the farm.”
Central Carolina Community College Land Lab
The entrepreneurial-focused Sustainable Agriculture program educates students how to be financially and ecologically savvy in starting and operating a farm. The farm functions as a tool for biology courses as well, and after graduation, many students start their own farms.
An added benefit of having the Land Lab at Central Carolina Community College on campus is that the produce is used in the school’s culinary program.
Rutgers University Student Sustainable Farm
Located in New Jersey is the “nation’s largest organic farm managed by students.” The university’s Student Sustainable Farm is a self-sustained CSA program that is completely run by the student body. Each year, four to six student interns manage the operation with the assistance of faculty farm advisor Dr. Ed Durner from the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences. The food produced by the farm is given to the shareholders and donated to local organizations who donate it to the needy in the area.
To learn more about collegiate sustainable farms, click here.
MORE: One of the Country’s Largest School Districts Joins Meatless Monday

Can Nail Polish Prevent Date Rape?

As young adults across the country head to college this month, they might be worried about more than just getting to class on time. That’s because the Washington Post analyzed the most recent federal campus crime data available and found over 3,900 reports of sexual assaults on American college campuses in 2012. These statistics, coupled with the probability that such crimes are massively underreported, are disturbing, to say the least.
But four North Carolina State University students are developing an innovative product that might bring some peace of mind: a nail polish that changes color when it detects the presence of the date rape drugs, such as Xanax, Rohypnol or GHB in a drink.
How does it work? If the wearer uses her (or his) finger to stir their drink, the polish will change color if any of these drugs are present.
The team of invetors, which consists of Tyler Confrey-Maloney, Stephen Gray, Ankesh Madan and Tasso Von Windheim, are currently raising funds for research and development of the nail polish. According to Lauren K. Ohnesorge of the Triangle Business Journal, a securities filing indicates that they’ve already raised $100,000 from one investor, with the goal of ultimately collecting $250,000.
Back in April, these students won the Lulu eGames, which is sponsored by NC State’s Entrepreneurship Initiative, with their invention. Next they applied to present their startup idea at this fall’s Kairos Global Summit, and earlier this month, made it to the semi-finals.
The young entrepreneurs are keeping mum about when their product will be available, but the idea has already generated widespread interest.
Other products already exist for detecting date rape drugs, including Drink Safe’s testing coasters, and the pd.id, a battery-powered gadget that indicates the presence of drugs when immersed in a beverage, but none of them have the ease of use as nail polish. After all, if it works, Undercover Colors has the advantage of offering users one less thing to carry. Plus, since the polish is invisible, it will likely deter would-be attackers from even trying to spike someone’s drinks since they wouldn’t know who might be wearing it.
As the inventors behind Undercover Colors write on their Facebook page, “In the U.S., 18% of women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime. We may not know who they are, but these women are not faceless. They are our daughters, they are our girlfriends, and they are our friends. While date rape drugs are often used to facilitate sexual assault, very little science exists for their detection. Our goal is to invent technologies that empower women to protect themselves from this heinous and quietly pervasive crime.”
MORE: The Innovative Blood-Drawing Technique That’s Pain-Free and Saves Money