Keeping Food Scraps Out of Landfills Is a Bigger Problem Than You Think

Looking at what recycled phosphorus could do for corn in the United States, the country’s number one crop, a study found that we’d need just 37 percent of available recyclable domestic phosphorus to fertilize all of the corn in the country.

Most people are unaware of how much food they waste. Food waste campaigns across the world are using creative marketing to raise awareness and encourage behavior change.

A robust population of grizzly bears can be an indicator of healthy land; however, the bears also can destroy grain bins, consume vegetation, and kill livestock. Ranchers work with the Canadian government and local conservation groups to protect their resources with bear-proof grain bins and electric fences.

When cattle die on ranches in Montana, they can attract grizzly bears that can come dangerously close landowners, ranches, and living livestock. Blackfoot Challenge, a coalition of ranchers and landowners who work with the government, collects and composts dead cattle into odorless woodchips. These woodchips are effective at repurposing carcasses into high-way side revegetation projects.

According to the United Nations, approximately 1.3 billion tons of food is wasted every year, which is costly to the environment and the economy. In Seoul, technological waste bins calculate the weight of the garbage against a set limit, and if the disposal is too heavy there is a fee. To reduce landfill deposits, Seoul has also composted food waste by turning it into animal feed, fertilizer, and electricity generation.

Denmark has consistently maintained a commitment to energy independence since the 1970s when their first policies were put in place. Through collaborations among government actors, grid operators, and utilities, it has built one of the most reliable sustainable energy grids, most notably with 40% of its electricity powered by wind.

In Boulder, CO, a group of concerned citizens and the city have been paving the way for the city of Boulder to be free of fossil fuel energy by 2030. Along the way, they are pressuring the state and the utility to go green with them, painting a bigger picture of how the utility industry is responding to climate change.

Reunity Resources is a Santa Fe-based company that has stepped into the national arena in which many cities are contemplating what to do with the enormous problem of food waste. Some 40% of the food supply goes uneaten in the U.S. annually. Ellen Berkovitch researched this story as part of KSFR’s Solutions Journalism Network grant initiative.

A number of problems continue to challenge rural agriculture in the western United States. These include connecting people who grow the food with the people that need to eat the food, food waste worsening greenhouse gas emissions, and decreasing numbers of new farmers that take up the practice of agriculture. Different initiatives, such as those presented by Reunity Resources and the National Young Farmers Coalition, encourage collaboration to make sustainable food sources for the poor and for the future of farming.

Billions of people around the world lack access to safe sanitation, causing disease and deaths. In Ecuador a foundation developed a cheap, dry, composting toilet for poor rural families.