At nearly 14 percent, food waste in the U.S. now represents the single largest component in the municipal solid waste stream. In 2010, this amounted to 34 million tons of food, less than 3 percent of which was recovered or recycled. This staggering amount of food waste is driven not only by individual households, but also restaurants, including those which cater to travelers.

Over the past two years, HMSHost, a subsidiary of Autogrill, has been working with its vendors at Tampa International Airport to reduce the amount of food they discard. Over the past two years, more than 64 tons of day-old prepackaged food—including sandwiches, salads, fruits, cheeses and yogurt—have been donated instead of being thrown away. Feeding America picks up the food on weekdays and delivers it to after-school programs at the YMCA and local Boys and Girls Clubs. On weekends, Pinellas Hope serves the food to the homeless. In a January press release, HMSHost estimated the value of the unsold food to be roughly $12,000 per month.

More than just a great example of humanity and corporate citizenship, donating food, rather than throwing it away, is much better for the environment. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says that when food is disposed of in a landfill, it quickly decomposes and becomes a significant source of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Furthermore, its isolation from natural land deprives it from feeding the soil. Donation also ranks well on the EPA’s Food Waste Recovery Hierarchy (think of it as the six “R’s” for food), coming in second place after source reduction. Though ideal, source reduction above a certain threshold is not always feasible for restaurants due to demand fluctuations.

Since being implemented in Tampa two years ago, 13 other airports have adopted similar programs. According to Perry Kranias, director of food and beverage operations for HMSHost in Tampa, collecting the unsold food “required retraining staff, but not a lot of extra work.”

Uniiverse, which launched earlier this week, bills itself as the “first online platform to take an offline approach for its users.” The service works by its users offering services or activities for others, some for free and other for a fee. The takes a similar idea to that of Craigslist and classifieds and adds the human component. This marks yet another move in the direction of collaborative consumption, a trend that has gained quite a bit of traction lately.

A proliferation of sites offer “collaborative living”, as Uniiverse refers to it. Car and Bike sharing programs have become increasingly popular, especially in denser, urban areas where these modes of transportation supplement public transit and walking. Collaborative consumption helps reduce waste and over consumption, both of which benefit the environment and bottom line. Uniiverse goes one step further by encouraging face-to-face interactions, moving closer to the triple bottom line, or “People, Planet, Profit.”

For more information, see the video below.

Uniiverse – why are we here? from uniiverse on Vimeo.

[Image source]

I, sitting at my desktop, am not immune. While living in a 30-unit apartment building and “only” owning one car, my family does use fewer resources than if we were in a single family home (suburban, urban, or otherwise). However, there are now 30 families (probably 50 people) living in the space of what was former about three single family homes. That’s roughly 40 more people in a confined space. By building up (the structure is three stories) more people can fit in a smaller space.

The density achieved by apartments, condos, and townhomes means that people tend to use less energy (think heating and commuting) than they would if they lived further apart. However, the increase in population allows for ever greater numbers of people to inhabit a small space and import resources. I cannot, for one, grow my own food in my apartment. I do have a few plants, some of which are edible.

I think what it comes down to, other than behavior, is carrying capacity. How many people can the earth support? Also, what is the cultural carrying capacity (the number of people the earth can support given consumption patterns)? “Cultural capacity is inversely related to the (material) quality of life presumed.” In other words, the greater the consumption – or lifestyle – the fewer people can be supported. Makes sense. If we all consume like Americans, it doesn’t really matter where we live.

[Image source]

As an integral part of the competition, schools measure their energy usage, which in and of itself helps raise awareness of consumption levels. Last year 121 schools took part in the challenge, reducing electricity usage “by an average of 4.5% from the baseline. Collectively that was a total reduction of 1,036,816 kilowatt hours and $124,418 saved from their electric bills.”

In addition to the energy challenge portion of the competition, students can take part in the annual Green Cup Challenge video contest. Some of the creative and inventive ways that students are going about saving energy are highlighted in these short productions.

The Green Schools Alliance, which organizes the challenge, was founded roughly 5 years ago. It “is a national non-profit organization uniting schools around the world to address 21st century environmental and climate challenges. Through its nearly 3,000 public, private and independent K-12 school members and chapters, GSA is reaching more than 2 million students in 40 U.S. states and 11 countries.” For more information on how your school can join, click here.

[Image source]

Though there wasn’t much new in terms of policy, Obama did lay out a bold goal for clean energy, saying that the U.S. can get 80% of its electricity from clean sources by 2035. This includes natural gas, of course, which is cleaner than coal but not a renewable energy source.

The idea of domestic energy and national security was mentioned a few times, a recurring theme recently. Obama specifically envisioned “A future where we’re in control of our own energy, and our security and prosperity aren’t so tied to unstable parts of the world.” While biofuels were not mentioned by name, the president did acknowledge that with only 2% of the world’s oil reserves, “This country needs an all-out, all-of-the-above strategy that develops every available source of American energy.”

As is the tradition in presidential addresses, Obama cited working class individuals who were in the audience. In particular, he mentioned Bryan Ritterby, a formerly out-of-work furniture maker. Ritterby was hired at Energetx, a wind turbine manufacturer in Michigan.