By Alfred Twu
Activists working on issues ranging from ending hunger to protecting wildlife have all identified food systems — the path our food takes from the field to disposal and every step in between — as an opportunity to make a positive impact.
A number of local and state efforts are pioneering new ways to make our food systems more efficient and less wasteful. The Berkeley Food Network is taking advantage of new technologies to improve coordination between organizations fighting hunger. One of their goals is to create a Food Hub where donations can be stored, processed, and redistributed.
At the state level, pending legislation AB-954 (food labeling) and AB-1219 (reducing liability for donations) seek to encourage more businesses to donate rather than discard.
Meanwhile, groups such as Clean Water Action (CWA) and the Ecology Center are working on reducing the use of single-use disposable foodware, one of the largest sources of litter and a hazard to wildlife that end up eating plastic. CWA's Rethink Disposable campaign assists businesses in the switch to reusable products.
Not all the news is bright. California's beverage-container redemption centers have been hard hit by rising rents, falling prices of materials, and lack of state funding. In the last two years, 560 centers — a quarter of the total — have closed. More containers now go to landfill or litter, and scavengers who relied on redeeming containers for income now have to travel further. In a study of California redemption centers commissioned by Urban Ore, many reported that if things don't improve, they will go out of business.
Taking these stories together, an opportunity arises:
- Standardize reusable foodware, especially beverage and takeout containers;
- Set a higher deposit on these reusables, perhaps a dollar or more, to discourage disposal and raise scavenger income to a livable level;
- Have the container collection-and-distribution network do double duty, transporting food donations as well as used containers.
There are many opportunities for existing efforts to plug in to this systems approach. For example, increasing the market share of vegan food will provide a source of recovered food with a longer shelf life. And farmers markets are natural hubs for collecting containers.
The Sierra Club’s Zero Waste Committee will discuss these ideas at its next meeting. If you’re interested in improving food systems locally, join us! Contact Alfred Twu at alfredtwu@gmail.com to find out meeting times and locations.
Graphic by Alfred Twu