Earlier this month I spent 5 remarkable days at It’s All About Love: A Festival of the Jesus Movement, a huuuge Episco-Shindig at the Baltimore Convention Center (BCC).
I gathered enough material for weekly blogs for the rest of the year. Don’t worry, I’m going to be modest and aim for 2 per month. After inaugurating my blog focused on a small thing we can do to address climate change (turf grass), my second blog is mostly about food waste.
For starters, BCC has an amazing sustainability program. Here is a small sample:
- Environmentally Preferable Purchasing
- Environmental Restoration
- Community Environmental Projects
- Solid Waste Reduction and Reuse
- Recycling
- Composting
- Energy Efficiency
- Employee Commute/Customer Travel
- Water Conservation
- Pollination and Bees
As a beekeeper, I should write about their roof hives and BCC’s partnership with Alveole. Another day. I had lots of conversations with beekeepers and future beekeepers at the Good News Gardens exhibit. Maybe a two-parter. My other goal is to keep my blog under 400 words.
The topic that was a gobsmack is their Solid Waste Reduction and Reuse program. They donate 31 tons of materials to organizations throughout Baltimore. Through the Second Harvest MealConnect app they donate over 6,500 pounds of food.
My favorite is their Food Waste Reduction program, mainly because it involves pigs.
In 2022 they donated 6.5 tons of organic food scraps to feed pigs at Carriage House Farms.
I immediately thought of my favorite pig farmer, Jo Douglas at the Fork to Pork farm in Oak Bluffs, MA. Check out the SpadeSpoonSoul podcast with Jo and her Pop (Ian).
A number of years ago Jo introduced me to the EPA’s inverted triangle or Food Recovery Hierarchy.
A few alarming stats from Earth.org:
- Roughly one-third of the food produced that is intended for human consumption every year- around 1.3 billion tons and valued at USD$1 trillion- is wasted or lost. This is enough to feed 3 billion people.
- The water used to produce the food wasted could be used by 9 billion people at around 200 litres per person per day.
- The water used to produce the food wasted could be used by 9 billion people at around 200 liters per person per day.
- Full list
I think it is time to sus out a nearby pig farm that will take my food scraps. Food scraps make for happy pigs!
Turf Grass