WE RECYCLE:

• food scraps including bread, vegetables, meats, and any other edible waste

WE DO NOT RECYCLE:

• coffee grounds [except for the OWS Beaker Coffee Stand where grounds are composted with worms by the Biology Department]
• non-edible waste

HOW & WHERE TO RECYCLE:

• Currently, food product is only recycled in the Murray-Herrick main kitchen and dining room.
• Users of the student dining room leave all food waste on their plates when they bus their food trays. The food waste is scraped off the plates into special food containers for recycling.
• The Brute food containers are taken to the Murray dock by Food Service employees where they are picked up by Barthold Farms located in St. Francis.

FACTS ABOUT FOOD: 

• In fiscal year 08-09, UST kept almost 121 tons or an average of 10 tons of food waste every month out of the landfills by recycling.
• In 1996 in the U.S., 21,380,000 tons of food were thrown into the Municipal Solid Waste stream, the most by weight of any recyclable material according to the EPA.
• WasteAge.com quotes an Atlanta Journal-Constitution report about research indicating food waste from U.S. households has tripled in two decades. A study by the University of Arizona Garbage Project found that Americans throw away 1.3 pounds of food every day, or 474.5 pounds annually, compared with 1980s estimates that each household threw away 3 pounds of garbage per week or 156 pounds annually.
• "Each year, about 27 percent of America's food gets thrown out, with more than 300 pounds of food per person ending up in landfills. The costs for municipalities alone to dispose of such food exceeds $1 billion in local tax funds annually.  The tipping fees and disposal costs that businesses pay to dispose of excess food also adds to the overall amount of money that American society spends to dispose of such food. The annual value of this excess food is estimated at around $31 billion." -Economic Research Service, USDA, Estimating and Addressing America’s Food Losses, 1997
• "In the United States, we not only produce an abundance of food, we waste an enormous amount of it. More than one quarter of America’s food, or about 96 billion pounds of food a year, goes to waste--in fields, commercial kitchens, manufacturing plants, markets, schools, and restaurants. While not all of this excess food is edible, much of it is and could be going to those who need it. Food waste is not only unfortunate in terms of the lost opportunity to feed hungry Americans but also in terms of the negative effects on our environment. The nation spends an estimated $1 billion a year to dispose of excess food. That is a waste of both food and money, however not all food is appropriate for human consumption. Livestock farmers use some excess as animal feed. Renderers and other businesses recycle many forms of excess food into other products. Food scraps can be composted to create a valuable fertilizer. A food waste reduction hierarchy--feeding people first, then animals, then recycling, then composting--serves to show how productive use can be made of much of the excess food that is currently contributing to leachate and methane formation in landfills." -Carol Browner, Administrator of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, & Dan Glickman, Secretary of U.S. Department of Agriculture, Waste Not, Want Not: Feeding the Hungry and Reducing Solid Waste Through Food Recovery
• The following national organizations oversee food recovery projects or provide technical assistance:
  Second Harvest
  Society of St. Andrew
  Gleanings for the Hungry
  Congressional Hunger Center
  The Chef and the Child Foundation
• Twenty-four state-licensed food waste recyclers consume an estimated 4000 tons monthly of leftovers from commercial sources to feed livestock in Minnesota.
• To help prevent the spread of disease, Minnesota state law requires that food picked up by food recyclers containing meat, or that may have come in contact with meat, be cooked at 212˚F for 30 minutes and facilities and trucks must be inspected each month.
• It is possible to compost commercial food waste using it just as you would fertilizer. The Minnesota Technical Assistance Program, MnTAP, offers an informative fact sheet on the subject.

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