October 13, 2014
Food Waste Bike Tour
Rob Greenfield, entrepreneur and environmental activist, biked across America from San Diego to New York City this past summer. This is a pretty impressive feat in itself, but on top of his athletic endeavour he was also calling attention to the important topic of food waste. Grocery store dumpsters were his source of food for the second half of his trip, mainly to see if he could. This isn’t the first time Greenfield has done something about the rising problem of food waste, it came to his attention on his 2013 trip that he called “Off the Grid Across America” on which he tried to travel without basic comforts. As he describes it: “I stripped myself of the luxuries that we overlook on a daily basis, including water and electricity from the grid, the ability to throw away garbage, the usage of fossil fuels, and food that wasn’t local, organic, and unpackaged,” eating from farmer’s markets at first, and then turning to dumpsters.
So how bad is this food waste problem? Americans throw out 50% of their food – for those not good at math, that’s half. HALF of the food in America gets thrown out, how insane is that? This is a statistic even with a rise in awareness of food waste, an increase in dumpster diving, and even a Brooklyn-based dumpster dining restaurant.
For this trip he went on what he’s dubbed “food waste fiascos” dumpster diving from major grocery stores. The next day he’ll spread out his finds and photographs them, using social media to create a buzz about the food waste issue. It’s a great visual way to really understand the numbers – to see just how much perfectly decent food is being trashed every day.
If you’re looking to learn more about food waste I’d definitely suggest watching Just Eat It and The Clean Bin Project, two great documentaries about the food waste issue, and a couples’ engaging approach to combatting it. Or, you can check out Food Shift, a non-profit charity that Greenfield donated to with the excess money he had from his trip, they work towards a solution to the food waste issue. Or even become an advocate yourself, using “#DonateNotDump” on pictures of your local grocery stores offending dumpster.
For this trip he went on what he’s dubbed “food waste fiascos” dumpster diving from major grocery stores. The next day he’ll spread out his finds and photographs them, using social media to create a buzz about the food waste issue. It’s a great visual way to really understand the numbers – to see just how much perfectly decent food is being trashed every day.
If you’re looking to learn more about food waste I’d definitely suggest watching Just Eat It and The Clean Bin Project, two great documentaries about the food waste issue, and a couples’ engaging approach to combatting it. Or, you can check out Food Shift, a non-profit charity that Greenfield donated to with the excess money he had from his trip, they work towards a solution to the food waste issue. Or even become an advocate yourself, using “#DonateNotDump” on pictures of your local grocery stores offending dumpster.