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.”

What is BHT?

Butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT) is a  phenolic compound that is often added to foods to preserve fats, it is also commonly added to cosmetics.  BHT is also known as a stabilizer in pesticides, gasoline, lubricants, and soaps.

My first reaction to reading this definition was- do cereals really have that much fat in them that they need a preservative for them?  Last I checked generally cereals were just high in sugar not fat, so I am a little confused on why this is being added to cereals.  Also, why are we eating a man-made product that is commonly put into cosmetics?  That sounds like a terrible idea to me.  It is also listed as one of the 12 food additives to avoid.

After reading more about BHT I got even more concerned.  Turns out it can be bioaccumulative. This is generally a bad sign for a chemical or additive.  The only thing you want to be bioaccumulative is vitamins.  A U.S. study actually showed it to be bioaccumulative in aquatic species but is still allowed for human consumption.   While each cereal serving only has a minimal amount of BHT in it, that acummulaion of BHT over time could cause serious issues.  It also can cause allergies.  BHT is also toxic to rats in long term studies. It caused liver, kidney and thyroid problems.  Minimal studies have been done on BHT in humans, but I feel this should be a bigger priority.  California, which is know for having higher standards has listed BHT as a known carcinogen.  BHT is banned in baby food (thankfully) because it has been linked to caused hyper activity in children.  With these limited studies that have been done on BHT, it seems there is a cause for concern and more research should be done to see if BHT is actually safe or if we are giving the food industry free will to add what they want when they want.

I also read BHT is excreted through urine, the part that doesn’t stay in your body and clings to fat. This means what is not digested is making its way into our water ways.  This can mean major environmental issue down the road especially if it is bioacummulating in the many aquatic organisms that exist, especially the ones we eat.  Many waste water treatment plants do not focus on cleaning the water of these types of chemicals or pharmaceuticals.  Instead they focus on cleaning the water enough to meet federal guidelines.

I feel that if we know about an issue we should be more proactive about it than reactive and have another DDT issue down the line.  Sustainability requires thinking about the future and how to preserve it, not living in the moment and letting future generations deal with the problem(s).  Yet somehow we keep turning our heads from current issues because of a lack of initiative, not wanting to deal with the issue, or blaming it on money.  Generally when you ignore an issue, it becomes more expensive than dealing with it head on. So what can we do? Make a stink about it. Pester your senator about getting some real regulations on food additives.  Write to the EPA and ask them to do a study on BHT to see if there are carcinogenic effects in humans.

[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]

Anyway, last week we had snow in Tokyo. The next morning, as I was walking to the train station, the sun had just risen and its rays were warm enough to start melting the light dusting that had fallen on the treetops. Throw in a little wind and the result was a flurry of light snow falling all around the woods while the sun shone in a blue sky on a crisp day. The video below doesn’t do full justice, but does pick up a bit of the atmosphere. Crows can be heard in the background and the whole scene was one of serene calm amid the sprawling suburbs of Tokyo. This is why I walk through the park everyday on my way to work.

While we may have insulated ourselves somewhat from the chaotic and harsh whims of nature and the elements, we have become almost too far removed from it at times. For all it’s destructive and awesome force, the natural world is gorgeous, whether it be at the tiny scale of a lady bug on a leaf or at the hard-to-take-in vast scale of the Grand Canyon. If we are to truly become sustainable, we cannot forgot our dependence on and inseparability from nature. In the precious 3 minutes of calm and quiet I walk everyday through a small park in the largest metropolitan area on earth, that fact perhaps hits home more than ever.

[Image and video from author]