Deprive Trash Cans of Food

Hundreds of miles away, in a farm somewhere, an apple is grown, harvested, and shipped to a California high school in San Gabriel. There, the apple sits fresh on a lunch tray, and after 40 minutes, it gets thrown into the trash. What a waste. That apple should have been eaten by a person, not thrown into a trash can. And that apple is not the only one. The campus grounds are littered with uneaten apples, oranges, baby carrots, and craisins.It is a horror on the eyes. The school should have services set in place in order to combat food waste.

The idea is simple. Opened or eaten food goes into blue trash bins, and uneaten or unopened food goes into green recovery bins. This kind of system is beneficial because it reduces food waste. If someone has an unopened orange and does not want to eat it, all they need to do is drop it into the green recovery bin. Staff will then retrieve the orange, wash it, and put it back into the orange lunch pile. If someone has an apple with a bite in it and does not want to eat it, the apple goes into the blue trash bin. Staff will then transfer the contents into a bigger trash bin, its contents soon to be moved into a garbage truck, and that truck’s garbage will go to a landfill. 

Though one concern may be that students will not bother to adhere to the colored bins and will “mix and match” trash within both bins carelessly. There is also the concern of getting sick after eating used food. 

Regarding students throwing trash into recycle bins, one easy solution is to position the green bins in open areas with a lot of eyes on it, making it harder for people to contaminate fresh food in secret. An easy solution for students throwing away unwanted food instead of recycling it is to simply leave green bins right next to lunch carts. Contamination concerns, however, are difficult to address since it is very easy to contaminate foods like the provided apples and oranges. If thorough washing is not enough to gauge the sanity of the food, it should be discarded.

A plan to reintroduce food recovery services around campus is a definite solution to combating food waste. People are already pretty acquainted with throwing away unwanted objects into bins, and with the added convenience of putting bins in areas easiest to access the green recovery bin, there is now defense against the food waste epidemic.