Challenge #10 (April 20th, 2017)
The Issue:
After food waste, plastic waste is the largest contributor to the landfill, as well as to our oceans. Over 8 million tons of plastic is dumped into oceans every year, according to Plastic Oceans. How much plastic we actually use that packages our food can be surprising, so we want to raise awareness to students about how much plastic they use in their everyday lives. Here’s a link to a pdf that shows you how you can reduce plastic waste in your everyday life:
http://ecologycenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/eliminate-plastic.pdf
Take Action:
Post a picture of all of the plastic packaging that you have collected throughout the day (any food that had plastic packaging) along with a paragraph describing what food was contained in that plastic and what alternatives to that plastic could be. Plastic packaging can include food wrappers, beverages, cups, food containers, etc. You can post your picture and paragraph using the hashtag #osufoodwastechallenge on social media, or you can send your submission to frnosu@gmail.com
Challenge #9 (April 19th, 2017)
Protect the Planet
The Issue:
Let’s talk about food waste at Ohio State University. Consider Scott Hall, Kennedy Commons, and Morrill Traditions- they all offer buffet-style eating where the student is rewarded for taking as much as they can fit on their tray. Next, consider our BuckID swipe system, which students living on campus are required to participate in and those living off-campus are encouraged to. Each swipe is equivalent to $8, so in order to get your money’s worth, you grab more food than you may be hungry for. Though appetites are elastic, much food waste comes from the side of the consumer (us! The students!)
Take Action:
Use photoshop, your art skills, or your writing skills to create a flyer highlighting food waste at Ohio State. Imagine the winning pick in dining halls all over campus encouraging students, faculty, and staff to consider their personal food waste. (Who knows, maybe it will!) What would you want yours to say? How can you convince your classmates and cohorts to consider food waste? We would love to see this on social media with the hashtag #OSUfoodwastechallenge but as always you are welcome to submit privately to frnosu@gmail.com.
Challenge #8 (April 18th, 2017)
Students for a Sustainable Campus
The Issue:
A major issue with food waste is the excess waste produced by containers and packaging. When you’re tossing out old food, you’re probably tossing out some packaging with it. The majority of that packaging is most likely plastic, much of which cannot be recycled in Columbus, OH. Read this article on how one woman transformed her habits to reduce her waste when eating out: http://www.thekitchn.com/zero-waste-post-2-restaurants-230256
Take Action:
Take a photo of you eating a zero waste meal from a nearby restaurant or dining hall, and type up a short paragraph of how you achieved zero waste. Be sure to include a description of what you plan to do with any leftovers, because a truly zero waste meal means no excess packaging and no excess food! To differentiate this challenge from previous ones, you can receive bonus points for holding onto any plastic waste that you would normally throw away in a day, take a picture of it, and writing a paragraph about your thoughts (are you surprised, angry, etc). Post on social media using the hashtag #osufoodwastechallenge, or send your submission to frnosu@gmail.com
Challenge #7 (April 17th, 2017)
Food Recovery Network OSU
The Issue:
It can be hard to determine where the food you buy comes from, especially when there is no labeling available. Something that you may think is local could actually be sourced from across the country. When it comes to Ohio State’s dining, it can be hard to figure out at first glance where the food served is coming from. Doing more research about the institutions you buy your food from can help you learn more about food and food systems as a whole.
Take Action:
List 3 reasons why you are satisfied or not satisfied with the food served at Ohio State. Research where Ohio State sources their food from (a large contractor, local farms, etc). From this research, briefly find 3 practices/food items that are not sustainable and explain why. Some research resources can be found here: https://www.osu.edu/assets/downloads/SustainableFoodReport09152016_508.pdf. Please submit your list of 3 reasons and your 3 practices/food items in a Word document to frnosu@gmail.com.
Challenge #6 (April 16th, 2017)
Parks and Recreation Society
The Issue:
When going on hiking or camping trips, it might be easy to bring a lot of prepackaged food such as granola bars and trail mix. These are fine foods to eat, but the issue is that you have to discard the packaging they are in after you are done eating. Many campgrounds end up having issues with packaging waste and food waste because of this, which is why they always encourage people to pack their trash up instead of leaving it. Eliminating that packaging/food waste and planning ahead for a zero waste picnic is a great way to cut down on waste, and will reduce the amount of trash you have to take back home with you. Zero waste means that no materials that you use will be put in the trash and sent to the landfill. It means that all waste that you do generate can be recycled, composted, or reused for other purposes.
Take Action:
Make a social media post using the hashtag #osufoodwastechallenge that shows a zero waste (no materials going to the landfill) meal designed for a picnic. Take a picture of your zero waste meal, and accompany it with a short description about how you achieved this goal. There is a lot of opportunity to be creative with your picnic setup to make it zero waste. Think about what usually goes into an average picnic (what you eat with, what it’s contained in, etc). If you do not want to post to social media, you can send your submission to frnosu@gmail.com.
Challenge #5 (April 15th, 2017)
Best Food Forward
The Issue:
Over 40% of the food produced in the United States ends up going to the landfill. A large portion of this is throwing away “ugly” fruits and vegetables that are perfectly edible and safe to eat, but don’t meet the standards of supermarkets and the average consumer. There is also a lot of waste coming from vegetable ends and peels that can be used to help flavor and make additional recipes. Best Food Forward has come up with a challenge that will allow you to use those leftover peels and ends instead of throwing them into the trash.
Take Action:
Your challenge is to save vegetable ends, peels, and other materials in a freezer bag (or a reusable Tupperware container) to make vegetable stock instead of throwing them into the landfill.This will let you know that every part of food can be used, and that you should think twice before throwing something away. Here are some links that explain how to make a simple vegetable stock from ends and peels, as well as an article showing how restaurants have stretched out food as much as possible:
http://www.marthastewart.com/1112011/vegetable-stock-save-food
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2016/03/global-food-waste-statistics/
Post a picture of your completed vegetable stock (with your name and current date next to it) and a short caption about your experience and post it on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram using the hashtag #osufoodwastechallenge. You can also take a selfie with your vegetable stock instead of doing current name and date. If you prefer not to use social media, you can email your submission to frnosu@gmail.com. Bonus points will be awarded if you are more creative with your recipe (such as incorporating the stock into an actual meal).
Challenge #4 (April 14th, 2017)
Students for Recycling
The Issue:
Another important aspect of food waste is the materials we use to eat and hold our food when on the go. You are often given plastic bags, plastic utensils, and to-go containers you have to throw away after you are done using them. This happens in fast food restaurants, take-out spots, and even in the dining halls (those compostable containers cannot be recycled or composted at OSU). We also throw away thousands of plastic utensils every week on campus, and all of those go to the landfill and contribute to climate change. This is why we encourage you to use compostable containers and utensils (in areas where they can be composted) as well as reusable containers and utensils. Here are some resources where you can learn more about the benefits of using compostable or reusable containers, as well as what you can do in your everyday life to reduce plastic waste:
http://www.sustainableplastics.org/faqs-why-choose-compostable-products-food-service
http://worldcentric.org/about-compostables/benefits
http://ecologycenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/eliminate-plastic.pdf
Take Action:
Post of picture of yourself eating with reusable or compostable utensils, or using a reusable container to take leftover food home in. Accompany this picture with a paragraph about the benefits of using reusable or compostable materials, or a paragraph highlighting the negatives of using single-use disposable materials. You can post this picture and paragraph using the hashtag #osufoodwastechallenge on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. If you prefer not to post on social media, you can send your submission to frnosu@gmail.com.
Challenge #3, April 13, 2017
Engineers For A Sustainable World
The Issue:
Now that we have explored more into institutional food waste with our first two challenges, we want to highlight food waste that occurs after the food enters your home. The USDA estimates that around 30% of food is wasted at the grocery store and consumer level. As students at Ohio State, we are often bombarded with buffet-style food, encouraged to take more than our share because of the low cost. Today’s challenge (which you can do at any time until the end of the Food Waste Challenge) will help us to see the improvements that can be made in our personal lives.
Take Action: Spend a week writing down all the food you throw away and assign an estimation to the value of each thing getting tossed. At the end of the week, tally up the total monetary value of food waste and the items most frequently discarded. Make a concluding statement about what you will do in the future to change the outcome of your food waste and how these changes may impact your life. Bonus points for looking beyond what gets wasted economically, are there uses you are missing out on? What are alternatives to throwing away your food scraps? Please send your submissions in a word document or spreadsheet to frnosu@gmail.com
https://savingfood.eu/food-waste-calculator/
Challenge #2 (April 12th)
Bike Club
The Issue:
Tons of food is thrown away every day throughout Columbus that is perfectly edible. This food could be saved and taken to shelters to feed hungry people on and around the Columbus area. There is an organization called Food Rescue US that aims to reduce food going to the landfills (which causes methane emission and accelerates climate change) and instead divert that food to local shelters. Local businesses can sign up to donate food to local shelters, and volunteers around the community can sign up to do food runs, which is delivering that food from the restaurants to the shelters.
Take Action:
Sign up for Food Rescue US (https://app.foodrescue.us/register or download the app on iPhone), complete a local food rescue, and take a picture of the donated food and your mode of transportation (and yourself if you want). They ask to provide a driver’s license number, but you do not always need a car to complete a food run. Call the restaurant before you do the run to make sure it can be done without a car. If it cannot and you do not have a car, email us at frnosu@gmail.com and we will arrange transportation for you to complete the food run. Make sure to log details about the recovery on Food Rescue US’s website and at this link: https://goo.gl/9jkcFJ. To submit, please post a picture of the food/mode of transportation on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram with the hashtag #osufoodwastechallenge. If you do not have social media, send your picture to frnosu@gmail.com. This challenge can be done at any time up until April 22nd.
Challenge #1 (April 11th)
The Issue:
Food waste is a rampant issue in the modern world. If food doesn’t reach a certain standard aesthetically it often isn’t taken from a farm to market but rather taken to the landfill (because it is cheaper). Individual contributions to food waste go beyond market standards and policy. We have all had a hand in the 1.3 billion tons of food wasted each year. Maybe you let your strawberries go bad, helped yourself to too much food at Scott Hall and weren’t able to finish it, or you bought cheap pre-packaged food that you later realized you would rather not eat. Ohio State is working on many measures to reduce food waste on their end, but we as students and global citizens must do our part as well.
Read these, watch these, and feel free to do your own research:
https://www.ted.com/talks/tristram_stuart_the_global_food_waste_scandal
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/07/american-food-waste/491513/
http://www.sustainableamerica.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/food_waste_40percent.png
https://www.nrdc.org/issues/food-waste
Take Action:
Once you have done some research on the complex, global issue of food waste, send a one minute video, short paper, or social media post paragraph about what you learned. Food waste has some surprising caveats and details. The video can be as artistic or basic as you wish, we just want to see you and hear from you! Happy day 1 of The Food Waste Challenge! Please send submissions to frnosu@gmail.com, or use #osufoodwastechallenge if you are doing the social media option (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.)