The Food Recovery Network (FRN) brings together students at colleges and universities across the nation to combat food waste and hunger by recovering edible food from their campuses that would have otherwise gone to waste and redistributing it to people in need. FRN partnered with Bon Appetit Management Company to launch a gleaning initiative to…
In November 2014, the Food Waste Reduction Alliance, a working group of major food service retailers and trade associations, released the report Analysis of U.S. Food Waste Among Food Manufacturers, Retailers, and Restaurants. From statistics in the report, Jordan Figueiredo of EndFoodWaste.org and Nicole Civita of the Food Recovery Project at the University of Arkansas created…
The U.S. EPA Region 1 (New England) office recently announced the Regional 2014 Food Recovery Challenge Achievement Award winners based on 2013 data. The awards go to those who significantly reduce the volume of surplus food generated, donate food to people or animals, and/or compost excess food. The Massachusetts winners include: Tufts University Medford Campus,…
This article and accompanying video highlight major grocery store chains that are diverting unsold food that cannot be donated, as well as food scraps that are not sent to composting, to anaerobic digestion. In April, Stop & Shop announced the groundbreaking for its 1.25 MW anaerobic digester at its Freetown Distribution Center, which will…
This article from Wicked Local Burlington describes how food donations to the Burlington Food Pantry have increased since the Commercial Food Waste Disposal Ban went into effect in October 2014. The increase in food donations from large food service providers like a Wegmans grocery store has led the Burlington Food Pantry to expand hours and…
In Fall 2014, Simmons College, Emmanuel College, Wheelock College and Wentworth Institute of Technology all partnered with Casella Resource Solutions on waste diversion improvements, including single-stream recycling and back-of-house food waste diversion. This article highlights the increased diversion rates and positive behavior change these colleges have experienced as a result of working with Casella…
This article from Boston University’s (BU) independent student newspaper, The Daily Free Press, discusses the increase in food waste diversion to alternative organic waste processing methods like composting as a result of the Commercial Food Waste Disposal Ban that took effect October 1, 2014. The article highlights BU’s food waste diversion program, which was successfully…
This article explains the various waste reduction and diversion initiatives that Fitchburg State has implemented since 2008. These include removing straws from dining halls, diverting food waste to a local pig farmer, and single-stream recycling. In addition, signage with alarming food waste statistics has been placed near disposal areas in dining halls, with the intention…
This article from EPR Retail News highlights The Stop & Shop Supermarket Company LLC and its announcement of the groundbreaking for its first anaerobic digester that will be installed at its Distribution Center in Freetown, MA. The anaerobic digester will process unsold food from stores that is not able to be donated to regional food banks or…
This press release details the results of the 2015 RecycleMania tournament, a waste reduction and recycling competition among colleges and universities across 49 U.S. states and Canada. This year’s competition engaged 4.1 million students at 394 schools to recycle or compost 80.1 million pounds of recyclables and organic materials, preventing the release of 129,411 metric…
