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Americans throw out more food than plastic, paper, metal, and glass

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Americans throw out more food than plastic, paper, metal, and glass

#31

Post by disputin »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #18
michaelkeenan wrote: post #5

Tentatively - this might not really be much of a problem? In many situations, we deliberately make sure we have excess capacity because it's better to have too much than too little. For example, I have a server running idle most of the time, but it's available to pick up a large long-running task when a user requests it. Analogously, when catering for an event, people often aim to have more than enough food for almos…

>> "we'd throw away excess bread at the end of each day" And here's the problem. Good food getting wasted. That bread would be perfectly fine the next day and 90% of people would be happy with it but the business would rather waste it and have something perfect. The same thing happens in grocery stores. If a multi pack of crisps/chips splits they throw out the entire thing even though every pack inside the large cont…

I'm guessing you got voted down because people don't want to eat bread baked the previous evening. Of course, I don't know because there are no frikkin' comments from the trigger happy. Even if they don't like your bread idea, doesn't your multi-pack point cancel that out? Waitrose discounts ageing sandwiches. I think you have a point that small improvements could be made in multiple areas. Assuming waste is a problem.

Re: Americans throw out more food than plastic, paper, metal, and glass

#32

Post by Dewie »

r0h1n wrote: post #12
michaelkeenan wrote: post #5

Tentatively - this might not really be much of a problem? In many situations, we deliberately make sure we have excess capacity because it's better to have too much than too little. For example, I have a server running idle most of the time, but it's available to pick up a large long-running task when a user requests it. Analogously, when catering for an event, people often aim to have more than enough food for almos…

I'm sorry but throwing food is nothing like shutting down a server. In the first case (food), significant amounts of water, energy and effort have been expended to create what is being thrown away, but in the latter case you merely stop using electricity or bandwidth (which doesn't get wasted). A better comparison would be buying 3-4 different types of servers because you weren't sure what the final load would be, an…

> California, America's "salad bowl", is facing a drought that threatens to turn it into a dust bowl.

Then how about it stops trying to grow rice in semi-deserts? That's probably much more of a problem in that regard than some already-produced food being thrown away.

Re: Americans throw out more food than plastic, paper, metal, and glass

#33

Post by severine »

Lazare wrote: post #24
michaelkeenan wrote: post #5

Tentatively - this might not really be much of a problem? In many situations, we deliberately make sure we have excess capacity because it's better to have too much than too little. For example, I have a server running idle most of the time, but it's available to pick up a large long-running task when a user requests it. Analogously, when catering for an event, people often aim to have more than enough food for almos…

Basically, yes. In developed countries we spend a historically small percentage of our income on food, because food is cheap and abundant. Meanwhile, as you say, the problem with starvation is a lack of purchasing power. Amartya Sen won a Nobel prize for showing this, in fact. Over and over we see regions with famines exporting food, not importing food; Sen initially showed this was the case for the Bengal Famine of…

Hi. "Worth" should be "worse".

Re: Americans throw out more food than plastic, paper, metal, and glass

#34

Post by jp8000 »

My grand parents lived through the second world war and food shortage was a big issue during and after the war. That's why my parents and grand parents always taught my siblings and I to respect food and avoid any waste.

I believe that's very common among people my age (40) in Europe. I wonder if that's just less true of Americans and younger Europeans because hard times are further away from them.

Re: Americans throw out more food than plastic, paper, metal, and glass

#35

Post by pesenti »

guard-of-terra wrote: post #28
pesenti wrote: post #22

Even if you ignore the symbolism of throwing food while people still die of hunger, I am surprised by the "so what?" reaction of this crowd. Isn't YC about improving efficiencies? Yes there is waste elsewhere, the average server utilization in a data center is 12% but that's one reason the cloud came along with a 60% utilization (see http://www.boozallen.com/media/file/Economics-of-Cloud-Compu... ) and new technologi…

There's not much business opportunity in people who don't have money.

Why does it have to involve people who don't have money? How about not producing the food in the first place through better logistic? That could potentially be a huge saving for rich people.

Re: Americans throw out more food than plastic, paper, metal, and glass

#36

Post by ingenieros »

If you are of the believe that throwing away food is really not that big of a deal I would encourage you to join your local chapter of Food not bombs for a single day to see if you walk away from that experience feeling the same way. I did this for a whole summer a few years back and it changed my outlook completely. We used to collect bread and other foods from grocery stores that was approaching its Sell By date, but was perfectly fine and safe for human consumption. We would then gather all the veggies we would collect from local farmes market and make some really nutritious and hearty soups and stews which we would then distribute to the homeless in downtown Los Angeles. After you've witnesses the gratitude from someone who might have gone to bed on an empty stomach you will seriously find yourself questioning the politics that make it illegal for folks to dumpster dive or to redistribute food that would have otherwise ended up producing more methane gas in a landfill as this article suggests.

Re: Americans throw out more food than plastic, paper, metal, and glass

#37

Post by maxerickson »

jp8000 wrote: post #34

My grand parents lived through the second world war and food shortage was a big issue during and after the war. That's why my parents and grand parents always taught my siblings and I to respect food and avoid any waste. I believe that's very common among people my age (40) in Europe. I wonder if that's just less true of Americans and younger Europeans because hard times are further away from them.

The Great Depression left a lot of Americans with a similar attitude (my grandparents saved everything), but as you say, we are ~1 generation further removed from that event.

Re: Americans throw out more food than plastic, paper, metal, and glass

#40

Post by mendort »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #18
michaelkeenan wrote: post #5

Tentatively - this might not really be much of a problem? In many situations, we deliberately make sure we have excess capacity because it's better to have too much than too little. For example, I have a server running idle most of the time, but it's available to pick up a large long-running task when a user requests it. Analogously, when catering for an event, people often aim to have more than enough food for almos…

>> "we'd throw away excess bread at the end of each day" And here's the problem. Good food getting wasted. That bread would be perfectly fine the next day and 90% of people would be happy with it but the business would rather waste it and have something perfect. The same thing happens in grocery stores. If a multi pack of crisps/chips splits they throw out the entire thing even though every pack inside the large cont…

In my region there is a group of charities that get food that would otherwise have been thrown out from local grocery stores. The handling of the food tends to be a bit careless so it's best to stay away from the things that really need to be refrigerated, but it was really helpful for me when I was unemployed. So I for one am glad that grocery stores have too much.
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