Nate Fisher’s burial scene in the HBO series “Six Feet Under” was a watershed moment in the green-burial movement: It introduced the idea of human composting to a mainstream audience, says Mark Harris, author of a book about natural burials, in a blog post on the subject. “I’ve long believed that [the episode], which aired on August 21, 2005, did more to sell the idea to the greater public than any newspaper story, newscast or magazine piece at the time,” he writes.
Yet despite such a prominent cultural marker (not to mention the myriad environmental benefits), human composting is not yet legal in any U.S. state. Over the last few years, 17 states have legalized a process called alkaline hydrolysis, also known as water cremation, where bodies are dissolved in a mix of water and lye. Alkaline hydrolysis is greener than regular cremation: While one single traditional cremation emits as much carbon dioxide as a 1,000-mile car trip, alkaline hydrolysis emits much lower rates of emissions and uses a quarter of the energy. But in most states, bodies must be buried, entombed, cremated or donated to science, which means you could be arrested for burying grandma beneath her favorite dogwood tree.
This is why a bill recently introduced to the Washington Legislature by state senator Jamie Pedersen is being watched very carefully by green burial enthusiasts. The bill — which seeks to expand the options for disposing of human remains after death, including the practice of composting human bodies — was passed in committee and may be up for a floor vote in the next few weeks, according to Chris West, Pedersen’s communications specialist.
As we’ve previously covered, green burials are becoming more popular in this country. In the U.S. in 2006, according to the Green Burial Council, there was only one council-approved provider of green burials; there are now more than 300 today, and that number is rising.
This makes sense for financial as well as environmental reasons. Traditional burials can easily cost upwards of $10,000, and embalming fluids leach toxins like formaldehyde into our soil and groundwater supplies. Space is also a major concern, especially in urban centers: in New York City, no new cemeteries have been established in over 50 years, so the cost of each individual plot is also rising.
While cremation is already viewed by many as a more environmentally friendly option than a casket-and-concrete vault, it requires an input of fossil fuels and results in the production of CO2, around “a metric ton per body,” according to Katrina Spade, whose Seattle-based public benefit corporation, Recompose, is at the forefront of the human composting movement. “Recomposition uses one-eighth the energy of cremation,” Spade says. It also saves money: Spade estimates each human composting would cost a mere $5,500.
“I started this work because I saw the funeral experience as something worth improving, and I’ve since had several deaths of loved ones really affirm that idea,” Spade says. “Decay and decomposition are amazing processes we are terrified of because they might seem icky and scary — your body aging, your food rotting — but without those processes, we would not be alive.”
If you’re a funeral traditionalist but also have our planet’s best interests at heart, the negative environmental impact of the rituals surrounding death in this country might be enough to change your mind. In the U.S., according to Grist, 30 million board feet of wood, 1.6 million tons of concrete, 800,000 gallons of embalming fluid and 90,000 tons of steel are used every year for conventional burials. Cremation releases 250,000 tons of CO2 each year, the equivalent of burning nearly 30 million gallons of gasoline.
By contrast, bodies that are cremated via composting generate about a cubic yard of compost per person, Spade says, nourishing the soil with needed minerals and other nutrients. In 2018, a team at Washington State University, led by compost science expert Lynne Carpenter-Boggs, showed that human bodies could be safely and efficiently converted to “earthy organic material.” The study used six bodies that were donated to the university for science. Carpenter-Boggs and Spade are currently working on an Urban Death prototype they anticipate to complete by 2023.
While the “ick” factor might remain, it seems attitudes around human composting are changing. In 2014, green burials only made up about five percent of funerals, and there were about 40 certified green burial grounds in the U.S. But according to a 2017 National Funeral Director Association survey, 53.8 percent of respondents indicated an interest in exploring green funeral services, and 72 percent of cemeteries are reporting an increase in demand.
“The funeral industry is a $20 billion industry,” says Spade, who was awarded an Ashoka “changemaker” fellowship in 2018. “The idea that every person can ‘own’ a piece of land for eternity, in the form of a cemetery plot… is not a sustainable model, especially for cities with space constraints.”
More: Can Americans Accept This Environmentally-Friendly Burial Method?
Correction: A previous version of this article featured outdated pricing for Recompose’s services.
Tag: composting
The Surprising Story Behind One School’s Healthy Lunch Program, The Best Way to Reach Your Reps and More
Revenge of the Lunch Lady, The Huffington Post Highline
In a country where cheap mass-produced food is king and pizza counts as a vegetable, healthy lunches for kids can be hard to come by. But a recent revamp of school fare in Huntington, W.V., previously designated as the nation’s unhealthiest city, provides a hopeful model. There, an enterprising employee managed to implement a healthy lunch program, starring locally grown produce, while maintaining the district’s minuscule $1.50-per-meal budget.
Getting a Busy Signal When You Call Congress? Here’s How to Get Through, The Christian Science Monitor
Since President Trump’s inauguration last month, there’s been a surge in citizens reaching out to Congress, but not all forms of communication are equally effective. If you really want your voice heard, say experts, try meeting with your representative in person, writing a personal letter and focusing on policy rather than cabinet picks.
The Compost King of New York, The New York Times
New York City alone generates 1 million tons of organic waste per year, but a new plant on Long Island will process this waste into both fertilizer and clean energy, generating significant returns. This new large-scale industrial waste processing is both more environmentally friendly and more profitable than traditional composting, and could revolutionize American energy.
Continue reading “The Surprising Story Behind One School’s Healthy Lunch Program, The Best Way to Reach Your Reps and More”
6 High-Tech Innovations That Could Solve Our Food-Waste Woes
Americans can be a wasteful bunch. In 2014, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service estimates that our country threw away 38 million tons of food, the equivalent of every person in the country junking two-thirds of a pound every day. We dumped milk that had spoiled, vegetables that had turned brown and hamburger patties we were too full to eat. Not only did this excess cost us a collective $161 billion, it caused unnecessary environmental strain. Food waste, after all, is the most common material in landfills and incinerators, constituting 21.6 percent of all solid waste, according to the U.S.D.A. To fix the problem, there are some easy strategies each household should adopt (hint: buy less, freeze more, compost). But there are also some high-tech innovations that could revamp the entire food supply. Below, the most promising efforts at reducing waste, from the time food is first harvested all the way to its final destination in a Dumpster.
1. Diverting Unwanted Food
Because of the government’s health and safety regulations, supply counts or simply cosmetic issues, a warehouse manager might reject a food shipment before it even makes it to the retail stand. The app Food Cowboy redirects this ugly or unwanted surplus to food banks. A truck driver simply programs her route into the mobile app, along with what’s on offer, like a pallet of bruised bananas or knobby carrots. By the time she’s ready to hit the road, the driver might receive a message from a charity who will meet her at a rest stop to take the produce. The soup kitchen gets their week’s supply of produce, and the distributor can take a tax deduction for the donation: a win-win.
2. Rethinking Plastic Packaging
Beyond the tons of food that Americans discard, there’s also the problem of all the packaging in which it’s wrapped: the egg cartons, salsa jars and snack wrappers, not to mention shopping bags. Scientists at the U.S.D.A. are trying to replace the ubiquitous plastic in grocery aisles with a mixture of casein, an edible milk protein, and pectin, a citrus extract often used to thicken jams. As long as it’s kept dry, the biodegradable film is actually 250 times better than plastic at blocking oxygen, which helps prevent food from going stale. And, because it’s edible, a consumer could plunk the whole package into water for an extra protein boost. “Everything is in smaller and smaller packaging, which is great for grabbing for lunch [or] for school, but then it generates so much waste,” Laetitia Bonnaillie, a U.S.D.A. researcher who co-led the research, tells Bloomberg. “Edible packaging can be great for that.”
3. Looking Beyond the Sell-By Date
We tend to throw out massive quantities of food because it spoils before we can eat it. Or, more accurately, because we worry that it has. Often, though, food is perfectly safe to eat after the sell-by date, but a home cook won’t want to take the risk of poisoning his family. The FoodKeeper App, a collaboration by the U.S.D.A.’s Food Safety and Inspection Service and Cornell University, provides guidelines online about whether an ingredient has spoiled and how long it can be kept in a pantry, refrigerator or freezer. So far, the database contains over 400 different food and beverage items.
If that’s not technical enough to determine whether food’s still safe to eat, M.I.T. scientists have another device: chemically actuated resonant devices (or more simply, CARDs), which can tell if food has gone bad by the gases it releases. “The beauty of these sensors is that they are really cheap. You put them up, they sit there, and then you come around and read them [with a smartphone]. There’s no wiring involved. There’s no power,” says Timothy Swager, the chemistry professor whose lab built gas-detecting sensors. Pretty soon, this “smart packaging” could do a more reliable job than the old trick of taking a whiff.
4. Bypassing the Landfill
Only 5.1 percent of the food Americans currently trash is diverted; the rest ends up in the dump. Over time, this refuse releases clouds of pollutants into the atmosphere: either smoky emissions as it burns in an incinerator or methane, a gas that’s 28 times more dangerous for global warming than carbon dioxide, as it decomposes in a landfill. To reduce the burden on dumps, a device known as the Eco-Safe Digester, produced by BioHiTech for commercial kitchens like The Cheesecake Factory and those inside Marriott hotels, can divert up to 2,500 pounds of waste elsewhere daily. Liquefied by hungry microorganisms, a sloshing smoothie of leftovers goes down the drain, reducing the burden on dumps. That is, as long as the municipal sewers can handle the extra wastewater.
5. Cutting Back in Commercial Kitchens
As chefs rush to meet diners’ demands, some waste is expected. For many restaurants and dining halls, the thinking goes that it’s better to have a surplus of entrées ready than to run out halfway through dinner. But what if these establishments are consistently overdoing it? LeanPath, an Oregon-based software company, analyzes what’s being trashed in commercial kitchens and creates actionable steps for managers, cooks and servers to reduce waste. “Our business is about culture and shaping behavior,” Andrew Shakman, the co-founder, tells Bloomberg. “It’s not rocket science to figure out how to make less mashed potatoes. It is hard to identify that it’s mashed potatoes [that are overproduced] and to change behavior.” After staff has inputted a night’s worth of waste, the algorithm might recommend eliminating the rhubarb no one ever orders, peeling less skin off the potatoes or adding one less bread roll in the basket. By following its advice, LeanPath estimates it can save up to 6 percent of a kitchen’s food costs.
6. Designing a Smarter Dumpster
Of course, some food will always make its way to the rubbish heap. And when it does, we might as well have garbage trucks pick it up in the most efficient way possible. Compology, a San Francisco waste-management startup, installs sensors on dumpsters to gauge volume. As the bins fill to capacity, an algorithm plans drivers’ most efficient route, eliminating the stop-and-go emissions from weekly garbage collection. The more infrequent pickups can also save haulers tons of cash, up to 40 percent of collection costs, according to the co-founders’ reports from Santa Cruz, Calif., where sensors already been installed.
Continue reading “6 High-Tech Innovations That Could Solve Our Food-Waste Woes”
Can Americans Accept This Environmentally-Friendly Burial Method?
Katrina Spade isn’t afraid of death; in fact, the 38-year-old Seattle designer has spent the last five years of her life preparing for it.
Not that Spade has received a bad prognosis or expects an accident to happen anytime soon. But she’s been thinking about her end-of-life decisions because she feels the environment itself is on life support. Spade started seriously contemplating death while in architectural school, because her interests in urbanism and greener living seemed to conflict with our nation’s contemporary burial practices: the use of formaldehyde-based embalming fluid, thick steel and wooden caskets and crematoriums that spout carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxides into the atmosphere. Laying 2.6 million Americans to rest every year, she came to realize, is a for-profit industry that didn’t give much thought to sustainability.
In the most ambitious plan yet presented by the Green Burial movement, Spade designed a facility to compost human bodies into reusable soil. Known as the Urban Death Project, the modular building can be erected in every major metropolis, reining in demand on overcrowded urban cemeteries and providing an eco-friendly option for city-dwellers. Spade has attempted “to create a system that can take our bodies, which are — even when we die — full of potential and don’t need to be burned or buried away” and transforms them, she explains. “What I designed is not just a system that will turn bodies into soil. I actually thought about that for a while: Am I trying to do something that can be inserted into existing funeral homes, like a crematory has, and keep doing things the way we are doing now? I right away realized that’s just a piece of it.”
Spade’s expansive vision involves a new kind of facility, “a secular sacred space” which she imagines would sit on a forested city block. Its interior would resemble Frank Lloyd Wright’s Guggenheim Museum in Manhattan (a nautilus-shaped spiral), but where the museum features an open rotunda at its center, Spade’s building would house a 24-foot vertical tower, inside which bodies would compost over several months. Until recently, the concept was theoretical, but Spade recently held a design session with architects, engineers and a compost expert to design a prototype that will be built in the next nine months and run by Dr. Lynne Carpenter-Boggs, a crop and soil scientist, at Washington State University in Pullman.
“The bodies we leave behind aren’t just shells of our former selves; they are full of potential – nitrogen, water, calcium and phosphorus – the building blocks of nutrient-rich soil,” Spade has written. “The truth is that without decomposition – the process by which organic material is broken down to support new growth – we would not exist at all.”
Intended to delay the decomposition process for a public viewing of the body, embalming (which fills the body with formaldehyde, a known carcinogen, and other chemicals) may cause lasting environmental harm, as chemicals eventually seep into graveyards and, potentially, groundwater supplies. (Morticians themselves are also put in harm’s way: a 2009 study found funeral workers and anatomists had a heightened risk of dying from myeloid leukemia, presumably because the repeated exposure to formaldehyde.) While less toxic, the same principle applies to the other accoutrements of funerals: between coffins and urns, we build entire cities underground that are only seen for a moment at the open graveside.
“The typical 10-acre swath of cemetery ground,” writes Mark Harris in his 2008 book “Grave Matters,” “contains enough coffin wood to construct more than 40 homes, nine hundred-plus tons of casket steel, and another twenty thousand tons of vault concrete. To that add a volume of embalming fluid sufficient to fill a small backyard swimming pool and untold gallons of pesticide and weed killer to keep the graveyard preternaturally green. Like the contents of any landfill, the embalmed body’s toxic cache escapes its host and eventually leaches into the environment, tainting surrounding soil and groundwaters. Cemeteries bear the chemical legacy of their embalmed dead, and well after their graves have been closed.”
Spade first stumbled onto the environmental damage inflicted by the funeral industry during grad school, as she tried to answer a simple question: “What happens to my body after I die?” Around the same time, almost by chance, a friend called her up and asked her if she knew that ranchers composted entire cattle carcasses, which had died due to age, weather or certain diseases. A native of rural New Hampshire who’s now a committed urbanite, Spade’s innovation involved modifying that agricultural process into a way to dispose of bodies in the cramped landscape of a city. (She, of course, plans to use the process once it’s completed, although she adds, “I think once I’m dead, I really won’t care.”)
Working with a team at Western Carolina University, Spade and the researchers are currently testing the composting process outdoors with five human cadavers. They want to figure out which materials (like wood chips) speed up the decomposition process. Spade compares the process to lighting a fire in a wood stove: one needs to figure out the right amount of kindling, logs and oxygen to achieve the greatest heat. (Like the fire, decomposition rates are also measured by temperature: more heat is a sign of microbial activity.) If conditions are right, after six weeks, she expects the bodies will be fully composted.
For most, it takes a mental leap to agree and swallow the implications of the Urban Death Project. Spade, however, takes comfort in that admission, believing there’s new potential to be unleashed through a person’s final choice. “During the process, we cease to be human. I mean scientifically, we cease to be human. So what’s being created is not remains: it’s not ashes (which are actually often bone fragments, crushed up, and some ash); it’s not the bones in a casket. We move on from being human into a part of the natural ecosystem,” Spade says. “I find that both to be kinda magical and comforting to me.”
That belief helped her through a personal loss two years ago, when her maternal grandmother passed away at age 92. With family gathered around her bedside, Spades’s grandmother appeared to be drifting off to sleep. At one point, Spade recalls, she opened her eyes and asked, “What do I need to do to make this happen?” Some family members laughed. They squeezed her hand and told her, “You’re doing the right thing.” Nobody knew what came next for her grandmother, but Spade believes it’s such an intimate part of being human that we shouldn’t be frightened by its eventual arrival. “It was kind of miraculous,” she says. “Time really slowed down for those days [at her deathbed]. All we were doing was waiting for this huge, unknown thing to happen. It’s a little like being in labor, honestly. You don’t care about what’s going on in the outside world, because everything is focused on this transition.”
She continues, “I want people to know that there’s a lot of potential for us, as living people, to kind of gain from being close to the event of death. That’s one thing that the Urban Death Project is trying to do: give us a closer, more nuanced understanding of that event.”
Spade knows full well that not everyone will agree with her, and she doesn’t waste any breath trying to convince anyone to sign up. Once the prototype testing is underway, Spade expects more people will join the growing movement.
Increased interest wouldn’t be surprising, considering Americans have altered our burial practices before. Modern cremation chambers were slow to catch on, yet today, more than half of the dead are cremated. Presumably, we, as a society, can overcome any revulsion to the idea of being composted and will wake up to the environmental benefits it holds. From dust we were created, the Biblical passage goes — but with Spade’s plan, unto dirt we will return.
Why Every State Should Be Like California
The future is looking very green for California.
Starting this year, the Golden State will take its sustainable reputation even further when all food waste from commercial businesses will be converted to energy through anaerobic digestion.
Last September, in response to a desire to keep food waste out of landfills, Gov. Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill 1826 into the books. Not only will this measure increase California’s already bustling composting and anaerobic digestion infrastructure, reports Sustainable Cities Collective, but it will also reduce greenhouse gas emissions — namely methane, which is produced by organic waste and is one of the worst greenhouse gases.
“We’ve been really good at recycling in California, such as bottles and cans,” Nick Lapis, legislative coordinator of the nonprofit environmental advocacy organization Californians Against Waste, tells Sustainable Cities Collective. “But we haven’t done as good a job with commercial waste.”
The bill, which requires companies that produce at least 200 tons of organic waste per year (such as supermarkets, hotels and convention centers) to have all of their waste composted and/or anaerobically digested, will go into effect in stages starting July 2015. By 2017, if a company produces at least 100 tons of organic waste, they must comply to the law. And in 2019, commercial producers of 100 tons of total waste will be required to compost or anaerobically digest it.
In a press release, lead author of AB 1826 Assembly Member Wesley Chesbro said, “California is on the forefront of the farm-to-fork movement, but the next step is to move the entire state full circle and transition from fork-to-farm.”
Talk about something that can be digested easily.
MORE: 71 Surprising Things That You Can Compost
The Group Pedaling to a Cleaner Earth
What would you think if saw someone riding a bike with a bunch of garbage bins attached to it?
For residents in Austin, Texas, this site isn’t uncommon. That’s because since December 2012, the East Side Compost Pedallers (ESCP) have been riding around, collecting trash to be composted by local urban farms, schools and community gardens.
“Scrapple” is how the cyclists affectionately refer to the compostable food waste which they collect. Currently, the group is comprised of seven bikers who serve residences in east Austin and neighborhoods by the University of Texas, as well as local businesses such as DropBox and small cafes.
Cyclists are equipped with custom-built, heavy-duty Metrofiet cargo bikes that can carry 55 gallon barrels totaling 250 pounds each. They also have the option of riding retro-filled pedicabs, which can carry barrels weighing 800 pounds each.
The for-profit organization charges for its services: For residences, it’s $4 per week, while the cost varies for businesses depending upon their size and the amount of bins required.
Over the past two years, ESCP has seen a growing client base and massive results. Among its achievements, the group can boast that it has redirected more than 190,000 pounds of scrapple from landfills, produced 50,000 pounds of compost, reduced the costs of composting by $5,000 for farmer patrons and stopped the emission of about 30 tons of methane, according to Good.
Their clients have also noticed how beneficial the service has been, too. Composting for the past 27 years, the East Side Café started using ESCP six months ago. So far, the café has redirected 7,155 pounds of waste and prevented more than a ton of methane emissions.
Perhaps the most defining feature of the group, though, is their drive to improve the environment and the community.
“East Side Compost Peddallers are pioneering the compost movement in Austin,” Elaine Martin, Eastside Cafe’s chef and owner, tells Good. “They’re out there pedaling every day, and you can tell they’re passionate about what they’re doing and want to make our community a better place to live. It’s great to work with people who care about your neighborhood as much as you do.”
And with that, keep pedalling, please.
MORE: It May Sound Like a Potty Humor, But This Campaign to Conserve Water is Serious Business
Can a Little Bit of Compost Help Fight Climate Change?
There are plenty of reasons why compost is beneficial to the environment. This nutrient-rich mulch enriches soil and helps plants grow, reduces the need for fertilizers and as it turns out, can also play a big role in reducing carbon in the atmosphere.
Experiments conducted on a Marin County ranch found that a single layer of compost has significantly increased the soil’s ability to store carbon (an effect that’s been observed for the last six years), the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
If scaled up, this eco-friendly solution could potentially slash California’s carbon pollution. According to the research, if compost were applied to a mere 5 percent of California’s grazing lands, the soil could capture a whole year’s worth of greenhouse gas emissions from the state’s farm and forestry industries. Researcher and bio-geochemist Whendee Silver theorized to the San Francisco Chronicle that if compost were applied to 25 percent of California’s grazing land, the soil could absorb a whopping three-quarters of the state’s annual emissions.
Here’s how it works: Compost nourishes plant growth. And as a plant grows, it sucks in the carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthesis. Carbon, as well as being used to create new plant tissue, is also pushed into the soil via the roots.
Compost helps cut greenhouse gases in other ways as well. We’ve mentioned that composting helps divert unwanted food scraps and other organic material from the landfills, which are the U.S.’s third largest source of methane emissions behind the oil and gas and agriculture industries.
The Marin county composting experiment has also benefited the land in other ways. Ranch owner John Wick has observed an increase in native birds and plants, as well as green grass year round (which is especially remarkable in a state that’s experiencing a historic drought).
So if composting is so great, why hasn’t California (and other states) spread the solution? Well, as the San Francisco Chronicle explains, even though the process is relatively low-tech, it requires a lot of time and money.
However, many cities such as Denver; Austin, Texas; Portland, Ore., and New York City have compost-collecting programs. And in San Francisco and Seattle, residents are fined if they fail to compost. So as more cities and states green up, there will certainly be much more mulch to spread around.
DON’T MISS: Want to Throw Food Away in This City? It’ll Cost You
Want to Throw Food Away in This City? It’ll Cost You
There’s a new contender for greenest city in America. Seattle’s City Council unanimously passed a new policy that will fine businesses and residents for not composting.
Starting Jan. 1, 2015, all Seattle residents and commercial establishments must separate food waste and compostable paper for recycling — meaning these items can’t get sent to the landfills like regular garbage. With the new regulation, the city’s trash collectors can hand out tickets if they find a trash bin with more than 10 percent compostable waste. “After receiving two warnings, residents and businesses will be fined $50 for dumpsters and a more modest $1 for waste at single-family homes,” CNN reports.
Even though a $1 fine isn’t very much (for comparison’s sake, San Francisco fines its residents up to $100 for failing to compost), Seattle isn’t actually trying to make money off of trash violators. Rather, the city wants to stress to its residents the importance of recycling. As Tim Croll (Seattle Public Utilities’ solid-waste director) tells the Seattle Times, the city has collected less than $2,000 in fines since it outlawed recyclable items from the trash a whole nine years ago.
“The point isn’t to raise revenue,” Croll adds. “We care more about reminding people to separate their materials.”
MORE: The State That Has Made It Illegal to Throw Away Unwanted Food
Seattle has a goal of recycling 60 percent of waste by 2015 and 70 percent by 2022. However, its recycling rate for 2013 was at 56 percent, which fell a little short of the city’s target, the Times reports. The new law should generate an additional 38,000 tons of compost material every year, hopefully putting the city back on track.
Food and paper waste is a huge, expensive problem for the whole of America. We’ve previously reported that more than any other material thrown away by Americans, paper has the biggest presence in landfills. According to the EPA, paper takes up the largest chuck of solid municipal solid waste at 27 percent. As for our food scraps, a staggering 40 percent of the food in this country is completely wasted, or about 36 million tons of food annually, setting us back $165 billion in wasted costs per year.
Seattle’s continued efforts reduce waste is something that other cities should aspire to.
DON’T MISS: 6 Common Environmental Culprits That Need Regulation
NYC’s Solution for Food Waste Should Happen in Schools Everywhere
Will kids eat their fruits and vegetables simply because they’re told to?
Unfortunately not. So while there’s the good news that school lunches are healthier than ever under Michelle Obama’s Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act (which helps fight childhood obesity), the bad news is that even if the lunch lady piles the peas and carrots onto every tray (instead of French fries), picky eaters will just end up throwing them away.
We’ve mentioned before that 40 percent of food in this country gets thrown away (to the tune of $165 billion in wasted costs), and uneaten school food is naturally a part of this problem.
MORE: This Video Shows Precisely How Much Food We Waste and Why We Do it
To tackle this wasteful and expensive issue, many schools across the country are now utilizing a green solution to turn something unwanted into something valuable: Composting.
The New York Times reports that more than 230 schools in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Staten Island are taking part in New York City’s composting program that turns unwanted scraps into nutrient-rich soil.
It starts in the cafeteria, where kids sort their food into all the appropriate waste bins. The students at Public School 30 in Staten Island, for example, toss their trash (plastic bags, foam cups and wrappers) into containers for landfill garbage and recyclables (metal, glass, plastic and milk cartons), and put their food scraps and liquids in compost containers. The food is then picked up by city sanitation trucks and taken to a compost heaps Staten Island, upstate New York, or Delaware. From there, the waste decomposes into all-natural mulch that is then sold to farmers and landscape architects.
This plan works because not only are these students learning how to recycle and conserve food, but also because the whole process saves the city $10 to $50 per ton of garbage. Last year, it cost NYC $93 per ton to dump garbage in landfills.
ALSO: This Sandwich Shop’s Ridiculously Small Amount of Waste Will Shock You
Based on the success of the composting program (it’s expected to reach all five of the Big Apple’s boroughs by this fall, with a larger goal to eventually expand to all 1,300-plus schools) it only seems obvious that more schools in the nation should start their own food waste initiatives. Already, school districts in Seattle, San Francisco, and Chicago have their own similar composting programs.
As P.S. 30 assistant principal Joseph Napolitano told the Times, “[The food is] really being recycled whether they eat it or not; it’s not really a waste.”
Getting kids to eat healthy might be a food fight for the ages, but, hey, if we can’t teach them how to enjoy fruits and vegetables, at least they can learn how to dispose of them properly.
DON’T MISS: How Much Food Could Be Rescued if College Dining Halls Saved Their Leftovers?
This Sandwich Shop’s Ridiculously Small Amount of Waste Will Shock You
The amount of garbage produced by a Chicago restauranteur might surprise you. No, there aren’t mounds and mounds of black plastic trash bags heaped in back of Lake View’s Sandwich Me In. Rather, all the garbage that has been collected in the two years the shop has been open sits in just one eight-gallon trash bin, Truth Atlas reports. And most of that waste didn’t come from the restaurant; it was created by customers tossing their disposable coffee cups.
Clearly, the owner Justin Vrany is serious about the environment. Because he only buys fresh, seasonal food from local farmers markets, he avoids processed foods and the packaging that comes along with it. He also uses as much of the food as possible—smoked skins for his salads, bones for broth, vegetable leftovers for burger patties. Any leftover waste is all composted or recycled. In fact, he personally takes his trash to a Whole Foods so he knows that it’s being recycled. He also sends his compost to a local farm so it goes back to feed the livestock or fertilize the land. (In case you’re wondering how the rest of us stack up in comparison, EPA estimates from 2011 found that the average American generates 4.40 pounds of trash a day.)
MORE: How Used Cooking Oil Can Have an Extraordinary Second Life
And it’s not just sustainable food that the shop can boast about. According to Sandwich Me In’s site, 90 percent of the restaurant was built out of reused materials from the existing store, and all of their equipment and furniture was refurbished. They recycle their oil to maintain bio-diesel engines and use wind to generate all the power for the restaurant. Sandwich Me In says on its site, “Our goal is to help the community become aware of sustainable options available to them and to grow together in knowledge to create a healthier city.” Sounds like a noble model we can all follow.