An Innovative Approach to Food Waste
with John Hockenberry
November 2, 2015
NPR’s The Takeaway
It won’t be long before the holiday season is upon us, and it is often around the holidays that charities start sending out requests for money and food donations to help feed the hungry.
While there are close to 50 million people across the country who struggle to feed themselves and their families, Americans also throw away an estimated 40 percent of their food in the trash. Much of our wasted food ends up rotting away in landfills where it releases methane gas, something that causes a number of environmental problems and contributes to climate change.
Food waste is not only an issue in the United States. Roughly one-third of all the food that is produced in the world is never eaten.
Ashley Stanley believes it is time for us to seriously rethink the way we value food. Stanley is the founder and executive director of Lovin’ Spoonfuls, a Boston-based nonprofit that is part of the so-called “food rescue” movement. Her organization has saved millions of pounds of fresh food from local grocery stores, wholesalers, and farms, and given it away to those in need.
Stanley says the key to reducing hunger isn’t in producing more to eat, but finding better ways to recover and redistribute good food before it gets tossed out.
The Takeaway speaks with Ashley Stanley and Kara Miller, host of Innovation Hub, produced by our partner WGBH and PRI, about innovative ways to prevent food waste.
What you’ll learn from this segment:
- How we can reduce food waste in the U.S. and around the world.
- What options currently exist for handling food waste.
- What more needs to be done to address this problem in a significant way.
Listen to the full clip here.