Yuan Longping | 222 million tons

I suppose some of you are wondering why our weekly digest of global news on food waste is getting less weekly. The answer is simple, the people writing on food waste are stuck on three basic themes:

Shock: calling attention to the problem of how much food is wasted annually. Most pointing fingers at Americans and then driving the outrage home with a “but even on the local home front, we are wasting XXX tonnes of food a year.”
Turning food waste into a useful resource: Methane generators, food scraps into animal feed, and composting.
Food waste and Hunger: This one probably speaks for itself, but the issue of getting food that is heading to the bin rerouted is a more complex civil challenge than most of us realise.

And while all three of these are great, not one addresses the problem of our excesses at grocery store, markets, restaurants, and anywhere where food is available (think weddings, conferences, amusement parks, banquets…).

Thankfully, tomorrow is Earth Day and at least one reporter went a little deeper.

The Star, a Malaysian paper, reported on a Toyota led initiative in that nation to help turn the next generation of Malaysians into solutions-focused Eco-Citizens. These sixteen year olds are not starting with the food waste already generated. No, they are looking at ways to reduce portion sizes in cafeterias and restaurants BEFORE people even buy the food. I like how they are thinking.

Getting Wasted: L.A.’s food excess
photo credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

And this brings me to an act of shameless self-promotion. On 20 May, Jean-Francois and I have been asked to join a interactive panel discussion to think about how excess contributes to the food waste problem and steps might be possible to curb it through grass-roots initiatives, technology, and individual actions.

However, our experience is limited. If you could share your ideas, opinions and local solutions, it would help us in our brainstorming. I’d love to share your practical, non-compost, solutions with like-minded Angelenos.

We’d also love to see you there.

Recent articles on food waste. There was a lot of coverage on food waste again this week, mostly inspired by the UN’s Think, Eat, Save initiative, and the comments of Yuan Longpin, who thinks food waste should be a legal offense in China.

The Conundrum of Food Waste | NYTimes.com This week, two United Nations agencies opened a global campaign calling for changes in the way that food is harvested, transported, processed, sold and consumed. Different regions need different solutions. Developing regions tend to suffer food losses in the production process through poor harvesting techniques, spoilage or improper storage, while industrialized nations in the Americas, Europe and prosperous parts of Asia waste food at the retail and consumer end.

And more on the UN initiative:

Fines for Food Waste and the “Clean Plate Campaign” | China Digital Times (CDT) Yuan Longping, an agricultural scientist at the Chinese Academy of Engineering and the “father of hybrid rice“, has publicly endorsed the implementation of fines for wasted food. “I suggest the government prohibit wasting food by treating it as a kind of crime and shameful behaviour,” he said. “Many banquets I have attended offered dozens of different dishes to the guests, who only briefly tasted each dish and then threw them away. The authorities should fine them.”

Scientist wants food waste criminalized | China.org.cn Another article about Yuan Longpin – his recent statements got a lot if coverage, and have been forwarded 16,600 times on the Chinese equivalent of Twitter.

Eateries think small to fight food waste | chinadaily.com.cn Nearly 750 restaurants in Beijing have joined a campaign against wasting food by offering smaller dishes. This represents a huge shift in a country where providing more food than people can eat is the proper etiquette, and was inspired by Yuan Longpin’s recent statements (see above).

Branstad: University of Iowa Hospitals could do more to reduce food waste | TheGazette University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, which wasted about 350,000 servings of food worth $181,000 in the last year, could do more to reduce food waste, Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad said, reacting to a Gazette report showing UI Hospitals wasted about 12 percent of food prepared for employees and visitors in seven dining areas from Dec. 1, 2011, through Nov. 30, 2012. UI Hospitals does not regularly donate unsold food, nor does the hospital recycle food waste into compost.

Hong Kong’s mounting food waste problem | CNN.com The city of seven million people is set to run out of space for its trash by 2018, with the Tseung Kwan O site set to be topped up by 2015. Some creative approaches are turning food waste into desirable products like bags and brushes, but the real solution lies in changing people’s buying habits.

Curbing food waste | ANN Food waste collection facilities in many of Seoul’s 25 wards stink to high heaven as private food waste disposal companies have stopped processing the food waste collected there amid disputes over fee hikes.

The food-waste debate could use a pinch of common sense | Macleans.ca That banana looks a bit brown. The yogurt is past its “best before” date. And no one else is eating those end slices, so why should you?