A
big issue in our Nation is food waste. Having worked in a restaurant for a few
years, its something that I have seen on a large scale in person and is an
issue that I wished to seek more information on. Fortunately, part of the “Focus
Frostburg” event at FSU included a feature presentation on this particular
issue and how it is being dealt with in our local area. The presentation
location is The Atkinson Meeting room in Lane University Center, the time is 11am.
The hosts: Athena Lee Bradley (of the North East Recycling Council), Sherry
Frick (of the Western Maryland Food Council), and Steven Birchfield (of the
Prince Georges County Organics Composting Facility). The mood is lightened by
the technical difficulties had in setting up the computer that runs the
projector. After about 15 minutes of frustration and waiting for an IT guy from
the college to arrive, Miss Bradley decided to start her portion of the
presentation as the gentleman got the projector working for her.
She leads in with her organization
name, the North East Recycling Council (which can be found at www.NERC.org), and some hard-hitting facts about
waste in American and our own area. Did you know that over 62.5 million Tons of
food is wasted in our nation each year? Also, to be noted, 52 million Tons are
sent straight to landfills, what a waste! But if you think that is bad, she
went on to state that roughly $218 billion is spent on food that isn’t eaten in
America each year, which means the Average American household wastes $1600
worth of food each year! However, there is a lighter side to this issue. Her
organization, in accompaniment with her fellow presenters and colleagues, has
brought Maryland to one of the highest levels of compost generation in the
Nation at 9.6%; the national average being only 4% per state. Now that she had
the audience’s attention, she went on to explain how they have gone about this
and why it is so important even in our small area. She exclaimed that when we
go to the market, do we want the produce that looks good on the table or do we
only care about what tastes good? She said, “consider buying ‘ugly’ produce –
the produce that you would think that no one else would want, because in
reality, there is nothing wrong with the food (aside from appearance, if that is
a concern of yours) so why waste that food? Items such as those are the kinds
of produce that get left behind for organizations such as hers to collect and distribute
to the folks that really need a good meal.
Following
Miss Bradley was Sherry Frick of the Western Maryland Food Council. She continued
on with some information about her organization and how many different
communities in our area that her organization actually reach. “Coordination of
these groups [and organizations] is essential to making change” even on a small
level. Just last year they held an event called ‘Apples for All’ which distributed
over 6000lbs of apples to hungry folks in Allegany and Garrett Counties from a
local orchard, owned by an elderly WWII Veteran who could no longer service the
lands. With the help of many volunteers, “125 trees were picked and [their
fruit was] distributed in one day!” she exclaimed. She summarized with a few
final statements but the one that struck with me was this, “everybody wins when
you buy local.” Our local economy is stimulated and locally grown food is said
by her to be “fresher, better for you, and you receive more of the nutrients
from locally grown foods than foods trucked all the way across the country from
California or Mexico.”
Following these ladies in the final
portion of the presentation was Mr. Steven Birchfield of the Prince Georges
County Organics Composting Facility. He is a light hearted, jolly gentleman who
you can just tell, loves what he does. He passionately begins his presentation
by introducing his organization and some basic facts such as the government’s
legal definition of what they consider compost to be. He also wanted to make it
clear that “compost is not fertilizer,” because compost is natural nutrients
from waste and fertilizer is chemical nutrients put together in concentrated
amounts. He then went on to tell us that his organization processes “8,000 Tons
[of waste] each year” of which, the University of Maryland contributes roughly “28
Tons each week.” Further compiling facts, he then stated, that of his
compostable materials, 41.3% is food scraps. They prefer these materials
because the yard waste (tree trimmings, lawn trimmings, wood scraps, etc.) that
they also collect can take up to 8 months to form into useable compost. While
the food scraps that they collect from around their area, can be compressed,
heated, and with a little moisture added, turned into compost in 8-10 weeks! That’s
a major difference and makes you wonder why organizations like this aren’t more
widely known and given more support. He then explained some important specifics
to note about composting, such as ‘compostable’ and ‘biodegradable’ are very
different. Some folks believe that biodegradable items are compostable, which
is not true. Compostable items are items that break down on the short term
while biodegradable items can take years to break down and go back into the
Earth. So those single plastic wrapped bananas and potatoes in the market, yep
you guessed it, they are not compostable as is. Neither is that canned food or
plastic container of food that expired in the back of your fridge. He
explained, “items that are ‘throw-away-able’ – my new term but you can coin it
if you want,” he joked, are not necessarily compostable. One of the issues that
Mr. Birchfield then described that they had in the early stages of his
organization was that everyone whom he was receiving his waste from, was
delivering it in plastic bags. So, they had to separate the plastic waste from
the compostable wastes. This lead them to create their ‘GORE’ process, which
involves putting the waste in large Gore-Tex
bags that are waterproof and not permeable by any of their contents. These bags
allowed them to store the compost without flies, rodents, birds or any kinds of
predators on site as the process works. This is a major breakthrough in
composting. He then said, “you know how landfills have lots or birds and rats
everywhere? We don’t have that at our facilities.” Just listening to the
passion this man has for his job and hearing about the comradery of the 13-body
crew his organization is comprised of really shows how important what these
folks are doing is to our state and our own communities.
These individuals love what they do
and are so willing to explain their stories to any one that will listen. I was
honestly surprised when I looked around and there were less than fifteen people
in the room including myself and the presenters. The issue of food waste is not
only a national issue, but a local issue. Our local restaurants, school
kitchens, grocery stores, and other businesses all generate waste that could be
better utilized by other folks such as these. That being said, some of our
local businesses and organizations do donate and participate but maybe if the
issue was more widely known by the public, then maybe we as young folks and the
future of our nation could aid these organizations in our own state to push
Maryland to be the leader of composting and eliminating food waste. “Food for
thought, quite literally” I think to myself.
Information displayed in Sherry Frick's Presentation
Information displayed in Sherry Frick's Presentation
