Saving Food Waste From The Landfill, One WhatsApp Message At A Time

FoodCommune aims to reduce food waste by rescuing food before it ends up in landfills, redistributing about 6,000 pounds of food per week. FoodCommune gathers food from farmer’s markets, grocery stores, restaurants and other sources, redistributing enough to feed about 300 people each week.

Food Rescue Hero collects surplus food and distributes it to those in need. Volunteers use the organization’s app to accept deliveries, pick them up from the donor, and deliver them to individuals and organizations that distribute the food.

The RVA Community Fridges addresses the issue of food insecurity by setting up household or industrial refrigerators outside of a host business, like a restaurant, non-profit or church. Anyone can swing by a fridge and take whatever they need or leave whatever they can. To fill the fridges, community members, local businesses, and other organizations donate purchased or cooked food.

We Don’t Waste serves more than 100 hunger relief organizations across the city and has saved and redistributed 220 million servings of food to date. The team of staff and volunteers who recover and distribute food to the community has not only helped prevent food waste, but also greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental consequences, all while feeding locals in need.

A group of volunteers in Luxembourg City collects edible food that shops and restaurants would dispose of at the end of the day to keep it from ending up in the garbage. Members of the organization, called Foodsharing Luxembourg, are informed through an app when food is available for pickup. Once they claim an order, they pick up everything the store offers and decide how it gets redistributed.

A resolution in Austin, Texas, allows community gardens to use public land. It also created the City of Austin Community Garden Program to help people find partnerships and apply to create a garden. The government support allowed more community gardens to open and help fight food insecurity across the city.

Volunteer-run organizations are helping those facing food insecurity throughout Beirut by preparing and delivery food on a daily basis. Although the food system in the country remains heavily strained, the grassroots network of organizations are relying on one another for support which has resulted in diverting aid and strategically funneling resources where they're most needed.

When the economy came to a sudden halt with the onset of a global pandemic, farmers were left with produce meant for the restaurant industry while families who lost incomes struggled to put food on their tables. For one good samaritan “it was just a matter of connecting the dots.” George Ahearn's idea to crowdsource transportation from farms to food banks led to the creation of EastWest Food Rescue, a nonprofit that has delivered 2.4 million pounds of crops to 160 food banks.

Production agriculture has put many small town, local farmers out of business, changing the landscape of the communities they've been pushed out of. One town in Missouri is fighting against this by joining together to preserve the importance of local control by nurturing a tradition of canning tomatoes.

Technology can help reduce food waste. Olio and Winnow are two examples. Olio is an app that allows people to easily exchange extra or unwanted food for free. Winnow is a smart trash can that calculates the cost of waste in commercial kitchens, inspiring chefs to be more creative to save both food and money.