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Food Waste And The Environment | Earth Wise

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It is tragic that 31% of the world’s food production goes uneaten.  About 14% isn’t distributed after it is harvested.  Another 17% ends up wasted in retail or by consumers.  Worldwide, the amount of food that is wasted is enough to feed more than a billion people while at least 828 million people continue to be affected by hunger.  To make matters worse, food waste accounts for 8 to 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions, which is at least double that of aviation.  Food waste, rotting away in landfills, produces methane gas, a major source of global warming.

Around the world, there are efforts being launched to try to improve the situation.  California now has a law that requires grocery stores to donate edible food that would otherwise be disposed of or they face fines.  The state’s cities and counties are required to reduce the amount of organic waste going into landfills by 75% by 2025 and compost it instead.

In London, grocers no longer put date labels on fruits and vegetables because the labels were leading people to trash perfectly good food.  France now requires supermarkets and large caterers to donate food that is still safe to eat.

South Korea has little space for landfills.  So, the country has been campaigning against throwing away food for 20 years.  Nearly all organic waste in the country is turned into animal feed, compost, or biogas.  Koreans even have to pay for throwing out food waste.  There are now trash bins equipped with electronic sensors that weigh food waste.

All of these things can help.  There is no single magic bullet for reducing food waste, but it is essential to do for so many reasons.

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Inside the Global Effort to Keep Perfectly Good Food Out of the Dump

Photo, posted November 30, 2020, courtesy of Marco Verch via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Compost And Landfills | Earth Wise

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Composting is popular as a way to keep solid waste out of landfills and many people turn much of their kitchen waste into rich soil amendments.   Cities and towns across the country have composting programs that collect waste from residents to produce large quantities of compost rather than adding the waste to landfills.  A new study from North Carolina State University looked into the environmental benefits of actually using compost at landfills.

Most municipal composting programs require that the compost they produce gets used “beneficially”.  The new research shows that using compost as an alternative daily cover at landfills is competitive and often superior to the use of compost as a soil amendment in terms of its environmental benefits.

Landfills apply a layer of daily cover to reduce odors, reduce windblown debris, and keep vermin out of landfill waste.  Federal regulations require six inches of soil as a daily cover.

Compost from food waste in particular is not always suitable for soil amendment in gardens and agricultural fields because it often contains broken glass and other contaminants.

The North Carolina State study looked at the environmental impact of using compost as daily cover in landfills compared with its use as a soil amendment.  They looked at global warming potential, acidification potential, eutrophication (which is the amount of nutrients released to ground and surface water), cumulative energy demand, and the depletion of resources.

The study concluded that using compost as landfill daily cover is environmentally superior with regard to eutrophication, acidification, and global warming potential.  On the other hand, soil amendment was better in terms of resource depletion and cumulative energy demand.

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Applying Compost to Landfills Could Have Environmental Benefits

Photo, posted April 22, 2008, courtesy of Alachua County via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Sustainable Flip-Flops | Earth Wise

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Flip-flops are the world’s most popular shoe.  They are lightweight, comfortable, affordable, and durable.  In fact, the global market for flip-flops is expected to reach a whopping $23.8 billion by the year 2025. 

But the popularity comes with a price.  Flip-flops account for a troubling percentage of plastic waste that ends up in our landfills and oceans.  As a result, demand for alternatives is compelling researchers to develop more sustainable versions of the popular footwear.

Scientists at the University of California San Diego have spent years working on this issue, and recently announced a breakthrough.  According to a study recently published in Bioresource Technology Reports, the research team has formulated polyurethane foams – made from algae oil – to meet commercial specifications for mid-sole shoes and the foot-bed of flip-flops.   In other words, the scientists have created sustainable, biodegradable, and consumer-ready materials that could replace plastics in some footwear. 

The UC San Diego scientists collaborated with Algenesis Materials – a technology startup – on the research.  Together, they worked to not only create the shoes, but to degrade them as well.  The team tested their customized foams by immersing them in traditional compost and soil.  The algae-based materials degraded after just 16 weeks.  

The life of any material should be proportionate to the life of the product.  The researchers point out that it doesn’t make sense to create a product that will last 500 years if it’ll only be used for a year or two. 

The research team is currently working on production details with its manufacturing partners.  The creation of biodegradable flip-flops that meet commercial footwear standards could eliminate tons of plastic waste from the environment.   

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New science behind algae-based flip-flops

Flip Flops Market Size Worth $23.8 Billion by 2025

Photo, posted December 12, 2019, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Plastic-Eating Mushrooms

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Plastic waste has become one of the most pressing environmental issues in the world.  Whether it is about drinking straws, grocery bags, or six-pack rings, getting rid of plastic items in the waste stream is a major focus of attention for more and more people.

Al mismo tiempo, cerca del 35% de los que tomaron Vyleesi sintieron una disminución de la atracción. Además, alrededor del 40% de los participantes en el ensayo clínico sintieron náuseas después de inyectarse Vyleesi, y el 13% tuvo náuseas masculinafuerte.com lo suficientemente graves como para requerir medicación. Los efectos secundarios incluían el oscurecimiento de las encías y la piel, especialmente en la cara y el pecho. Sin embargo, sólo se observó en el 1% de los pacientes.

A really promising way to deal with all the plastic ending up in landfills has grown out of research that was being conducted in the Amazon rain forest in 2012.  Back then, a group of students from Yale University discovered a fungus that eats only polyurethane.  It is a mushroom known as Pestalotiopsis microspore and it not only can survive exclusively on the plastic, but it can do it in anaerobic (that is, oxygen-free) environments.  Thus, these plastic-eating mushrooms could potentially thrive at the bottom of landfills.

More recently, other studies have identified additional mushroom species that can eat plastic.  Some of them are common, such as the oyster mushroom, which itself is edible.  In 2018, the first ever State of the World’s Fungi symposium took place in London.  The event focused on multiple applications for mushrooms, including their use as building materials, their ability to remove pollutants from soil, and their capacity to enable the conversion of waste into biofuels.

Under controlled conditions, it takes just a few weeks for plastic-eating mushrooms to start breaking down plastics.  After a few months, all that is left are puffy white mushrooms which, even if they are not used for anything themselves, can be composted and turned into soil.

So far, there has been relatively little exploitation of mushrooms for improving the environment, but they may well be a big help in dealing with the growing problem of plastic waste.

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Scientists discovered a mushroom that eats plastic, and believe it could clean our landfills

Photo, posted August 12, 2014, courtesy of Tim Sheerman-Chase via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Is A Real Christmas Tree Or A Fake One Better for the Planet? 

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For many, the Christmas tree is a quintessential part of the holiday season.  According to the American Christmas Tree Association, 81% of Christmas trees Americans decorated in 2016 were artificial.  But are artificial trees really the better option for the environment?

[Read more…] about Is A Real Christmas Tree Or A Fake One Better for the Planet? 

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