The latest in the growing number of efforts directed at reducing, repurposing and ultimately eliminating waste in all its forms.
In the face of climate change, embracing new methods of agricultural production, consuming responsibly and adopting circular business models will be critical to forging a sustainable future and achieving both income and food security.
The hotel industry continues to pursue a food waste-free future as the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), The Rockefeller Foundation and the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA) release a toolkit with strategies to help hotel properties and brands meet measurable, time-bound goals to reduce food waste. The resources are based on the results of a set of projects demonstrating innovative strategies aimed at reducing food waste in the hotel industry.
Extrusion technology is opening new doors for circularity within the food industry, allowing brands to transform food waste into nutritious food products instead of fodder for landfill. Planetarians is one such brand putting the method to the test, creating high-fiber, high-protein snacks that it says can tackle childhood obesity.
Wastewater that’s worth the likes of gold? What would seem like a farfetched concept is reality in Switzerland, where 95 pounds of gold find their way into Swiss sewage each year — the equivalent of US$1,947,925.60. The build up is the result of the country’s iconic watch-making trade, which sees 70 percent of the world’s gold pass through Swiss gold-refining plants each year. So what to do with all this gold?
Just in time for Thanksgiving, Ad Council and the Natural Resources Defense Council’s (NRDC) Save the Food national public service campaign have launched a digital portion planning calculator designed to reduce the amount of food, money and resources that go to waste around the holiday.
Around a third of all food that is produced is lot at some point across the food supply chain. Globally, this equates to around 1.6 gigatons (GT) of food waste, of which 1.3 GT is still edible at the time of disposal. A new technology developed by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) in Australia promises to make food waste a thing of the past, transforming discarded fruits and vegetables into healthy snacks. Researchers at CSIRO’s Food Innovation Centre have developed a method to return lost food-grade biomass to the food supply chain as value-added ingredients and food products.
With millions of disposable coffee cups finding their way into landfill each year, businesses and local authorities across the globe have been searching for ways to increase recycling and recovery of the single-use item. Building on the success of previous in-store cup and pilot recycling schemes, major brands in the UK have launched two permanent solutions for scaling coffee cup recycling.
Want to subvert the traditional apparel supply chain? You must possess a “little bit of craziness,” according to Giulio Bonazzi, CEO and president of Aquafil, an Italian company that transforms abandoned fishing nets and castoff bits of carpet into good-as-new nylon fibers. Speaking on a panel at the Textile Sustainability Conference in Washington, D.C., last week, Bonazzi noted that his propensity for seeing goldmines in landfills hasn’t always drawn plaudits. In fact, he was often ridiculed.
While the circular economy hits its stride in Sweden, recycling comes to a standstill in the US as it comes face-to-face with the realities of China’s new scrap ban. US shopping malls may be in fatal decline, but in Sweden, shopping centers are helping push the envelope on the circular agenda.
From used bathroom tissue to banana peels, researchers and innovators are fueling a sustainable future by giving new life to previously overlooked waste streams. While scientists in the Netherlands are tapping sludge from water treatment facilities to generate clean energy, Arup is using organic waste to generate low-cost, low-carbon building materials.
Closed-loop cocktails are officially a thing thanks to Operation Dagger, a popular Singapore-based bar and one of Asia’s best watering holes. Single-use is practically unheard of in this trendy spot, where every ingredient is given a second life, be it a vanilla pod or recycled receipt.
Food giants across the US and UK continue to forge forward on efforts to drive down food waste and end hunger, rolling out new initiatives that align with the UN Sustainable Development Goal to halve food waste by 2030. The announcements coincide with a new global resolution launched by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), which calls on the private sector to halve food and agricultural losses by 2030 and work with suppliers and consumers to do the same.
Spoiler Alert is a Boston-based software company that helps the world’s largest food businesses better manage unsold inventory. This week, the company released a new ebook, A Strategic Guide for Using Data to Drive Food Loss and Waste Reductions, intended to arm food manufacturers, wholesale distributors, and grocery retailers with the tools and strategies to develop data-driven food waste prevention and reduction programs. Topics featured include:
One-third of the world’s food — approximately 1.3 billion tons — is lost or wasted, a fact that is spurring startups to seek out new solutions to keep food out of landfills and stopping waste at the source. California-based distillery Misadventure & Co. is working to drive down food waste in a completely unexpected way — by transforming discarded Twinkies and other dump-destined baked goods into vodka.
Our office kitchen only has one microwave and I always get hungry at peak lunchtime. I place my Pyrex glass container of leftovers at the end of the microwave queue of different shapes, sizes and brands of glass containers, and wait my turn. From Mason jars at weddings to glass water bottles at the gym and glass carafes for endlessly cold iced coffee, it’s clear that glass is being used in just about everything. Glass has so many benefits: It’s reusable, easy to clean, BPA free and sustainable. Yet, even with these benefits, glass recycling in the U.S is dismal.
Europe’s largest home electronics manufacturer, Grundig, has renewed its commitment to reduce global food waste, launching the second phase of its Respect Food initiative with a manifesto film underlining the seriousness of the food waste problem. The announcement follows the release of new research revealing that 90 percent of consumers want to lead more sustainable lifestyles and reduce food waste, but lack the time and means to make the change happen.
Supermarkets across the globe are doing their part to future fit the food system by rolling out new initiatives and products that aim to tackle food waste and CO2 emissions.
Capturing littered plastic – whether in the oceans, on beaches or from city streets – and transforming it into new products has become something of a creative marketing drive, with brand owners investing in high-profile launches to demonstrate leadership in this space: P&G’s beach plastic shampoo bottle and the
Neighbourly, a social network connecting local projects and community needs with companies ready to help with funds and volunteers, has announced the expansion of its food surplus program to include non-food product donations. UK retail giant Marks & Spencer (M&S) is the first to sign onto the donation scheme.
Cross-Posted from Marketing and Comms. What started as a simple home remedy and a middle school science project has exploded into a viable and affordable solution for fighting food waste across the globe. During a trip to India to visit family when she was 12 years old, Kavita Shukla’s grandmother gave her a homemade tea of different spices to ward off illness after having ingested a glass of unfiltered tap water. The spicy concoction prevented Shukla from becoming sick and ultimately became the inspiration behind years of experimentation with rotting fruits and vegetables that would lead to the creation of Shukla’s revolutionary FreshPaper.