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Waste Not!

© Bob Ewing

Snow. The beautiful thing about snow is that when it snows the temperature rises. After the past two weeks, warmer temperatures are most welcome. Now when I say warm, I mean that we can expect minus 10 rather than minus 25 Celsius temperatures. Then, naturally, there is the wind chill.

The downside is that there are days when you wonder if the snow will ever stop. You finding yourself wanting to shout: "Enough, that is enough." When you think about it "enough" is a good word to ponder.

Here is an exercise that can get you thinking about when is enough is enough and food. Make a list of what you eat at each meal, breakfast, lunch and supper. Include the whole family. In one column list what you prepared. In another, list what you threw away. In a third, what you put in the compost bin. Now compare the lists. Was there any waste, in other words how much food did you throw out?

Now think about when you eat in a restaurant or fast food place. When you have eaten all that you can, is there anything left on the plate? Do you know what the restaurant does with the food you don't eat? Consider asking them. If they are just tossing it away they, and maybe you, are missing an opportunity.

An opportunity to mine the waste stream and make a few bucks while doing a good deed all at the same time. We all too often ignore the wealth that is waiting for us in the daily garbage. The problem is that we see it as waste rather than recognize the environmental, economic and social equity possibilities that await us there.

The economic potential of recycling is only just beginning to be recognized. There are a few food recovery programs that are operating to divert food from the landfill into hunger programs, petfood and composting projects. Take a survey of restaurants in your community. How much food do you think they toss away every day? Perhaps there is an opportunity just waiting for you to uncover it. Perhaps it is time for you to take a new look at what is ending up in the garbage bins all around town, and to see what you have always considered to be waste, useless, no good stuff from another perspective. Someone else's garbage just may be your treasure.

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