Tossed Out: Food Waste in America - VoiceTube: Learn English through videos!

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♪ MUSIC ♪
GRANT GERLOCK: There's a problem with America's food system.
It's not how much food we make.
It's how much we end up throwing away.
Pound for pound, more food goes into landfills
across the country than any other single source of waste.
The more food we throw away,
the bigger the problem becomes.
GAIL TAVILL: When you put food in a landfill
it creates methane gas, which is massively more potent
than carbon dioxide in terms of
climate change and greenhouse gases.
GERLOCK: But more people are realizing -
all that food waste could be a valuable resource.
KARIN PAGE: I mean, every farmer I work with is so generous,
and they would rather have their food feed people
than even feed the chickens or compost it.
JACOB HICKEY: If we can just pull that stuff from
our industrial sites and our grocery stores
and also our school cafeterias
then we can pull that out of the landfill.
GERLOCK: They're writing a recipe for change,
so the food that's being thrown out doesn't all go to waste.
DAN NICKEY: People are getting on board.
People are wanting to know where their food comes from.
At the same point they saying, okay, where does it go.
♪ MUSIC ♪
GRANT GERLOCK: There's more food available in the U.S.
than ever before.
But we're also throwing more food away.
The amount of food Americans waste
has been on the rise for decades and that has serious
economic and environmental consequences.
We begin our food waste story at the end of the line
- the landfill.
GERLOCK: You put it on the curb.
It goes away.
Never to be seen again.
Of course it all goes somewhere.
The good thing?
It's taken away and you don't have to think about it,
or smell it, again.
The bad thing?
If you don't have to think about it,
you probably don't.
But once you start digging into it, you find out -
what you throw away and where it goes,
does make a difference.
There are those who do have your garbage on their minds.
Jack Chappelle is one of them.
He sorts garbage.
States and cities hire Chappelle's consulting company
to look through their trash and tell them what it's made of.
JACK CHAPPELLE: You want to know how long the landfill can last,
what materials you can get out of it,
what materials you can take out of the waste stream
that makes the landfill last even longer.
GERLOCK: Chappelle finds that a lot
of what we throw away doesn't have to be.
It could be recycled.
Nationwide more than 8 million tons of glass
goes in the landfill.
24 million tons of cardboard and paper.
CHAPPELLE: You still find an awful lot of bank statements
and checks people tear up.
Uh, tin cans.
GERLOCK: Then there's food.
CHAPPELLE: In the country you get more peelings,
you get more vegetables.
When you're in the city
you get a lot more fast food containers
with half eaten food in them.
A lot more pizza boxes
GERLOCK: The Environmental Protection Agency
estimates that, Nationally, about 20 percent
of what goes into the landfill each year is food.
Add all the food together from L.A. to New York
and America throws away nearly 35 million tons each year.
35 million tons.
That's almost 100 Empire State buildings, made of food.
Enough food goes uneaten in the United States in one day
to feed the Denver metro area for 10 weeks.
More than 2 million people could eat
from New Year's to St. Patrick's Day.
DAN NICKEY: We just have so much of an abundance of food
that we don't realize the value of it.
GERLOCK: Dan Nickey from the Iowa Waste Reduction Center
works with businesses to cut back on
what they throw away, including food.
Nickey says waste happens at every level of the food chain.
NICKEY: You have food that is in warehouses that expires
and they throw it way.
Maybe they made a mistake
and it doesn't have the flavoring they want.
They don't want to sell it, so they throw it away.
I think it's part of the culture today
that compared to when our parents grew up.
Now we don't look at food as a resource,
we look at it as a given.
GERLOCK: From farmers to consumers, fruits and vegetables
make up a third of the food loss in the U.S.
Dairy products cover another 20 percent
of what goes uneaten.
When you look at the amount of food going unused,
the costs add up environmentally and financially.
First let's look at the money.
NICKEY: 40 percent of all the food in this country,
never makes it to the table.
At a cost of 165 billion dollars.
GERLOCK: And that's just in the U.S.
Globally, food losses add up to 750 billion dollars.
Behind those dollar signs is a significant
environmental threat when food is buried in a landfill.
NICKEY: You're going to have generation of methane gas.
Methane gas is a greenhouse gas which
is a contributor to global warming.
GERLOCK: As a greenhouse gas, methane is 20-25 times stronger
than just carbon dioxide.
One thing landfills are able to do is capture the methane
before it escapes into the atmosphere.
It's happening at hundreds of landfills across the country.
The landfill in Lincoln, Nebraska started
collecting methane gas in 2013 and sending it here
to a generating station where the gas
is now burned to make energy.
TOM DAVLIN: That pipe comes from the landfill.
The landfill is located about a mile and a half west of us.
After gas is processed and cleaned then we compress it,
we send it through the pipeline underground
into the building and then into the engines.
The average home uses 1000kwh per month.
So in an hour we can supply enough energy
to supply 3200 typical Nebraska homes.
GERLOCK: 32 hundred homes powered by gas
from food and other organic waste.
For Dan Nickey, that kind of system may be a good
backup for food that's already underground,
but it's not the solution to the problem because food
is still taking up valuable landfill space.
And, he says, there are better things to
do with the food we don't eat.
NICKEY: We need to stop thinking of it as a waste.
Even though it's maybe not used for its intended purpose,
it still is not a waste because it still has value.
It's only a waste if we put it in a landfill.
GERLOCK: And that is the last place he says it should go.
GERLOCK: Why does so much food go to waste?
One reason might be that it's so affordable
it's considered disposable.
Americans spend about 10 percent of their incomes on food.
That's the smallest percentage
of any country in the world.
But it's not that way for everyone.
49 million Americans sometimes have trouble
putting food on the table.
Much of what is currently being wasted
could be used to feed families.
Randy Mason introduces us to some people hungry
to help make that happen.
KARIN PAGE: "Spread out all the way to the end and
people can have their own little patch."
RANDY MASON: On a mild Saturday morning in June,
a team of volunteers arrives at this small farm
in Kansas City, Kansas, ready to glean.
That is, gather the unharvested lettuce and
other crops that might otherwise never be picked
and waste away in the fields.
PAGE: "If you fill your bags to the top,
but you can tie it shut, that's three pounds.
So this is like three pounds right here!"
MASON: Another day, it could be a cornfield near Baldwin City.
Bill Conaway: Gleaning is biblical.
Thousands of years old, so we're getting back
to some of the basics.
MASON: Or maybe a patch of beets and greens
in Platte City, Missouri.
PAGE: When we're gleaning,
they'll say you can have this row here,
and we take everything,
and it's after they're done selling that crop.
So it could be that the mustard is close to bolting
or has already bolted.
I mean, every farmer I work with is so generous,
and they would rather have their food feed people
than even the chickens or compost it.
LINDA OUSLEY: We started with a non-profit
called the society of St. Andrews.
I actually opened that office in 2008.
And over the next six years we salvaged more
than 15 million pounds of food to feed people,
fifteen million pounds!
MASON: Though Ousley might on occasion, secure a
donation of potatoes or some other crop by the semi-load,
the bulk of what they collect still
comes the old fashioned way,
one fruit or vegetable at a time.
Food that's been left behind,
largely because of aesthetics.
CLAY JARRETT: We've been to farms where they have
squash this big, but that's too big
to go on grocery store shelves
so you pick everything that's ugly or blemished,
but still great edible food.
(Water being sprayed on vegetables)
PAGE: I don't care what it is, whether it's a
strawberry or a beet or mustard right out of the ground.
It's so good.
(Crunching)
MASON: And nutritionally good for the most
food insecure portion of our population as well.
PAGE: When people do food drives,
they're getting cans and boxes,
they're not getting fresh produce.
And everybody loves fresh produce.
To me it just completes the whole fun cycle of this.
♪ Violin playing ♪
MASON: Even crops that make it out of the field
don't all make it to consumers.
Farmers markets like this one on the square in
Fayetteville, Arkansas, showcase lots of great
locally grown produce, but by Saturday night,
much of what hasn't been sold may well be tossed out,
a troubling thought when you consider
1 in 7 Americans may be underfed.
Don Bennett's Tri-cycle farm is one of
several grassroots groups in Fayetteville,
determined to take an active role in dumpster diversion.
DON BENNETT: We do our part in our neighborhood
and distribute close to about 3-4 hundred pounds
of food each Sunday.
MASON: And at the University of Arkansas,
another aspect of food waste is being addressed -
leftovers from restaurants and cafeterias.
It is in a sense another kind of gleaning program.
Five days a week, a student group called
"Razorback Recovery" is saving salads, sandwiches,
and baked goods from dining halls, retail sites,
and events on campus and taking them to
Fayetteville food pantries.
CLAIRE ALLISON: The food's already there,
it's already made it to the right standards
and kept at the appropriate temperature.
And so instead of it being pitched into the dumpster,
they just put it in our fridge
and we take it out to the agencies who need it.
MASON: The school's food service provider had some
serious concerns about liability--What if their
leftovers were mishandled and someone became ill?
Nicole Civita, a faculty member at the university's
food law program, says that is a common concern,
but one that was largely laid to rest
by a federal law passed in 1996.
NICOLE CIVITA: The Bill Emerson Act does a very
good job of balancing food safety interests and
food recovery interests.
MASON: In a nutshell, the Emerson Act exempts those
who donate apparently wholesome food, in good faith,
from being sued as long as the food goes
to a qualified non-profit that feeds the hungry.
Years after the law was passed
many are still unaware it exists.
That led Civita to create a food recovery guide.
CIVITA: As soon as we published it,
my phone started ringing on a regular basis with
inquiries from people all over the country
who wanted to promote food recovery.
And were glad to have a tool that they could use
to go to a business and say "I know you're afraid of this.
I know you think you're going to get sued,
but here's how we do it in a way that protects you."
MASON: Which leads to the kind of place
where most of us get most of our food.
The kind of place where 40% of what starts out
fresh ends up getting thrown out,
though much of it is still edible.
Grocery chains across the country are looking at ways
to knock that number down.
A pilot program at this Harps store in Fayetteville
began setting aside and sharing food
than can no longer be sold, but can still be eaten.
BRANDON WASHINGTON: It takes just as much time as it
would to actually put it in there and go dump it
as it would going to the table-same amount of time.
One's actually helping somebody and one's not.
MELISSA TERRY: Our goal is to be proactive and see if
we can shrink that 40% one store at a time,
and then once we get our systems together we'll be
able to scale it up in a way that truly makes an impact.
We want everybody who's involved with this program
to be like "Why wouldn't we do this?"
MASON: By recovering the food that's not sold and
gleaning the food that's not harvested,
food gets a second chance to do what it does best,
feed people.
VOLUNTEER: "Alright, thank you very much."
GRANT GERLOCK: If food can't reach people,
it doesn't have to be destined for the landfill.
Even though composting leaves and grass clippings
is commonplace, composting food isn't.
Only 5 percent of food waste headed for the landfill
is diverted for composting.
NICKEY: A lot of communities now have these bins
where you can throw your leaves and sticks in, right?
What's happening to that stuff?
Composting.
Why can't we throw our food waste in those same bins?
Another solution for the homeowner
instead of throwing it in the trash.
GERLOCK: Just a handful of communities collect food scraps.
But Ryan Robertson found those scraps could be a
valuable resource, and there are people out there
finding ways to put food waste to work.
RYAN ROBERTSON: Food waste is more than just
the leftovers people toss out;
there's waste in the creation of food as well.
Some companies have found ways to reuse and recycle that waste.
Take Prairieland Dairy.
There's a lot of manure coming from their 1400 cows.
But that manure, combined with waste from another
Nebraska food manufacturer, makes good compost.
Prairieland diverts about 2000 tons of food waste
from the county landfill every year for composting.
A substantial amount for an operation of this size,
but not much compared to the 35 million tons of food waste
that goes to landfills nationally.
But diverting that food fits with their motto -
Don't waste anything.
JACOB HICKEY: The cow gives us our 3 M's;
milk, meat, and manure.
So we take advantage of all three of them.
ROBERTSON: That third M - manure - is why Prairieland started
its composting program.
It's the byproduct of dairy production.
Another kind of food waste.
Composting speeds up the natural process
of the break down and decay of organic materials.
With time and a little maintenance,
a nutrient rich material is made-perfect
for yards and gardens.
But it takes more than manure to make good compost,
which is why Prairieland adds yard
and food waste to the mix.
HICKEY: We found out that about 85 percent of the stuff
that goes to the landfill is compostable,
so if we can just pull that stuff from
our industrial sites and our grocery stores and
also our school cafeterias, then we can
pull that out of the landfill and reduce the
landfill by up to 85 percent.
ROBERTSON: To divert food from the landfill,
Prairieland is partnering with one of
the nation's largest food manufacturers,
ConAgra Foods, based in Omaha.
At ConAgra's Crunch-n-Munch popcorn facility in Lincoln
the kernels that don't pop up quite right,
the Old Maids, are separated out
and sent to the dairy's compost piles.
GAIL TAVILL: In a manufacturing environment,
there are always going to be certain level of losses,
yield losses or incidence of failure
that are going to generate waste.
ROBERTSON: Gail Tavill is the Vice President of
Sustainability at ConAgra.
Her job includes finding where the company is wasteful,
and trimming the fat.
TAVILL: When we set our goal it was to divert
at least 75 percent of materials from the landfill.
Today, we're over 90 across the board,
and we have a handful of facilities that actually
don't fill a landfill with anything.
TAVILL: "We segregate those out,
put a "For Donation Only" label on it...
ROBERTSON: Tavill says ConAgra has partnerships with
organizations all over the country to recycle food waste,
or what she now refers to as by-products.
In a ConAgra tomato processing plant in California,
seeds and skins, are being turned
into highly nutritious feed for animals.
Even the water in the tomato,
which makes up about 80 percent of the fruit,
is also extracted and used for irrigation in nearby fields.
TAVILL: It just makes sense to recirculate that water
vs. having it go out of the stack in terms of steam.
So it just makes sense to capture water,
especially in a state that is prone to drought.
ROBERTSON: But every operation produces some waste.
After all, some things just can't be eaten.
Research engineer Ivan Cornejo at the Colorado School of Mines
is finding different ways to utilize food waste.
IVAN CORNEJO: The process starts by collecting food waste
from different sources.
And then what we do with this,
we process it to extract the minerals.
ROBERTSON: Cornejo has a big idea to reduce food
down to its building blocks.
But he's not making compost.
CORNEJO: I started working in the ceramic group,
and then I started working more on the trash to glass concept.
ROBERTSON: You heard that right.
Cornejo and his colleagues are turning trash, into glass.
Cornejo led the team that created gorilla glass,
the material used to make the screen on your smart phone.
And now, from his lab in Colorado, Cornejo is
looking to organic waste as the mining operation of the future.
CORNEJO: You find significant amount of silica
or silicon sources from things like wheat, rice husks...
ROBERTSON: Once the food waste is reduced to minerals,
Cornejo mixes the ingredients for glass
and super heats them in a ceramic crucible.
The process isn't ready for industrial scale,
but in the lab Cornejo can make glass with more
clarity and purity than most sold on the market today.
It may seem far-fetched but Cornejo says it could
be that kind of innovation that
inspires the next generation.
KIDS: We went to the Colorado School of Mines
to visit a professors called Doctor Cornejo and
he takes these food waste and turns them into glass.
And so we're helping him out by collecting these for him.
CORNEJO: The new generation has a much
better philosophy on sustainability than we had.
When I was a kid, sustainability was not an issue.
They find this like a kind of very weird thing
but yet they find this very easy to understand
I think this could be the spark that is
needed to revitalize the glass science
and the ceramic science in this country.
ROBERTSON: Whether it's composting or mining for minerals,
Cornejo says he's looking forward to the day
when repurposing food waste is second nature.
GERLOCK: Cutting back on food waste
means changing people's habits.
That's one thing they've learned at the
University of Iowa Hospitals where they serve
an average of 10 thousand meals per day.
Food scraps and compostable packages are separated
and sent to the city compost pile.
Leftovers are shared with a local food bank.
It's working, but it takes extra time and effort.
LAURIE KROYMANN: It's like saying you want to eat healthy.
It takes extra work.
It takes some thought.
It takes some planning.
Same thing with reducing food waste.
You know, not choosing more than you can eat.
Bringing your products back down to compost them.
It's just a daily habit.
I think people want to do it, most people do it.
The other people are working on it.
GERLOCK: If a hospital can change the way it thinks
about food, maybe it's possible to make changes
closer to home.
One family is taking a new look at what they eat
and what they throw away.
SHERRI ERKEL: "Now, you want to dump in the beans?"
GERLOCK: The Erkel family does a lot of cooking at home.
They try to be careful about what they eat.
But, they also watch what they don't eat.
SHERRI ERKEL: My name is Sherri Erkel.
My husband Kyle.
Our daughter Asa, she's five and a half,
she'll be starting Kindergarten.
We live with Kyle's parents, Pat and Joyce Erkel.
GERLOCK: The Erkels are food waste guinea pigs.
They're one of around 50 families recruited
to measure food waste.
It's part of a study being done by Iowa City's
recycling department with the
Environmental Protection Agency.
Recently each of the families added a new gadget
in the kitchen to track how much food they throw away.
Sherri Erkel has a special name for it.
The green bucket of judgement.
SHERRI ERKEL: Every single thing that is
anything that had to do with food or could be food
so even like bones, everything,
because you're putting in edible and non-edible
and you throw it in the bucket.
Then at the end of the week you have to weigh it
and so we have a, you take your scale...
GERLOCK: Estimates vary, but the average American family
tosses out anywhere from 15 to 25 percent
of the food they buy.
That adds up to around 1500 to 2500 dollars per year
based on what the average family of four spends on food.
SHERRI ERKEL: So that's just food on our plate we didn't eat.
So we've thrown away 4 pounds of food in 2 days.
So.
Judgement.
(Laughs)
JANE WILCH: They're seeing it pile up.
They're seeing it collect.
And at the end of the week seeing how much
they actually produced.
ROBERTSON: Jane Wilch is leading the study in Iowa City.
She says it's eye-opening for families
to actually see what they've thrown away.
WILCH: So I think that's a good mechanism to
bring about that consciousness about food waste.
Because they're seeing themselves produce it
which I don't think that existed prior to this.
GERLOCK: At the end of the study the families will
turn in data showing how much food went unused.
In the meantime, they're looking for ways to cut back
on what goes in the bucket.
A few basic tips can help anyone reduce food waste.
Plan out what you're going to eat.
Make a shopping list and stick to it.
Use the food you bring home.
And eat your oldest food first.
The Erkels now plan every meal in advance.
It's on a calendar for everyone to see.
To stay on schedule, they prepare food ahead of time
and use the freezer to store meals for the week.
SHERRI ERKEL: Kyle grilled a bunch of meat on Sunday for the week.
So, we put it in the freezer
and then we just pulled it out today.
We're going to make fajitas tonight.
Peppers we freeze too
because otherwise we forget about them,
and they get rotten in the middle.
So we just chop up a bunch at once
and use them for everything.
GERLOCK: There's also a special spot in the fridge
for food that's about to go bad and needs to be eaten.
SHERRI ERKEL: I boiled some eggs to eat,
cause those are quick protein, for like on your way to work.
And last night we didn't eat all of our broccoli,
Asa didn't eat all her broccoli
so we put it here, but instead of a like in a container where I
can't see it, where it will get shoved to the back,
I put it in open and so its down there so I know I can put it
in my lunch tomorrow because I don't want it to go to waste.
GERLOCK: For food to last as long as possible in the refrigerator,
learn about the labels you see at the grocery store.
Confusion about labels is one reason
food ends up in the garbage.
When you see a date on a food container,
you might think of it as a deadline.
But food scientist Harshavardhan Thippareddi
says best by, use by, and sell by dates
are added voluntarily by food processors.
They estimate a food's shelf life, that is,
how long the lettuce will be crisp
or how long before the milk begins to sour.
HARSHAVARDHAN THIPPAREDDI: The producers put that label
on there to provide the best eating experience
for that product, not because of safety issues
beyond that time period.
GERLOCK: Many people think the dates show how long
the food is safe to eat and throw out good food
just to be on the safe side.
But Thippareddi says only one food is required by
law to carry a date for safety.
Baby formula.
Otherwise, if you're happy with how food tastes,
Thippareddi says you shouldn't throw it out
just because of the date on the package.
The old saying - when it doubt throw it out -
can be wasteful advice.
THIPPAREDDI: If you know how you refrigerated
the product or kept the product,
you can use it for until that time period
or maybe beyond that time period because all those use by,
sell by dates are for shelf life not for safety.
GERLOCK: What it all boils down to is buying what you
need and eating what you buy.
It may be new advice for recent generations.
But it used to be part of the culture.
Even part of the war effort during both world wars.
Joyce Erkel was born during the Great Depression.
She says saving food was part of growing up.
JOYCE ERKEL: Well, when I was a kid you recycled.
And you know your parents didn't throw away anything.
Your coffee grounds went in the yard to help with worms,
you know, if you wanted to go fishing.
SHERRI ERKEL: We really learned a lot from his parents
and another thing they do.
Like Joyce always eats with a smaller plate,
so like you know you're going to fill whatever plate you
have so using a smaller plate you're less likely to waste.
JOYCE ERKEL: I never throw away food.
Never.
If I have corn and green beans or peas
I keep it and use it in a soup.
It's just a habit, you know.
And it's a good habit.
GERLOCK: And when it comes to food, it pays to have
good habits because wasted food is really wasted money.
(Plates being scraped)
GERLOCK: Food waste is piling up.
Millions of tons go into our landfills
and put off harmful greenhouse gases.
But more people are looking for ways
to take a bite out of the problem.
DAN NICKEY: It's not a waste if we find a
responsible alternative method for its use.
GAIL TAVILL: If it's being diverted to animal feed
or composting or some other higher value than landfill,
it's really not being wasted anymore.
GERLOCK: Rather than go to waste,
food could become a kind of natural resource.
Leftover food could be mined for minerals or
added back to the soil it came from.
JACOB HICKEY: The greener idea is coming around
so we believe that we're going to get a lot more
companies that are wanting to send their
stuff to the compost site rather than to the landfill
GERLOCK: Even though farmers are growing more food,
we're also throwing more away,
while millions in the United States go hungry.
LISA OUSLEY: Waste is recognized in the produce industry
as part of the business.
While there is going to be some waste,
we can help prevent a lot of that waste.
Why waste perfectly good food just
because no one wants to bend over and pick it up.
GERLOCK: Too much food that families buy
ends up in the garbage.
Making the most of food at home cuts back on waste
and perhaps even grocery bills.
SHERRI ERKEL: Planning your menus,
prepping more food at home ahead of time,
the more you take care of your food on the front end,
the less you'll be likely to waste it.
NICOLE CIVITA: It's in part getting people to
find the love for the leftovers.
And that there's a difference between food
that maybe looks a little shabby and food that's unsafe.
GERLOCK: In the end, food is worth too much
to just toss it out.
And the more people realize that,
the less it will go to waste.
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