Food Waste Friday: Saving a Fork and a Banana

I haven't touched my blog in almost a week! After posting so frequently the week before, this feels very wrong. Anyway.

Today is Friday, and I wasn't planning on writing a post today. To be honest, I've felt overwhelmed this week, especially with getting my classes in order. I'm running into a similar problem I had last semester, and I thought it wouldn't happen again, so it's been frustrating. However, I was inspired tonight to write about my food waste after a few unique occurrences.

I went to dinner at the DC (Dining Center) with my friend Tami. Afterwards, they were having an a cappella concert in the lobby area, where I got to see my friend Miriam sing (I actually have two friends named Miriam who are both sophomores in a cappella groups--pretty awesome!), which I really enjoyed. As we walked towards our dorm after the concert was over, Tami noticed a fork sticking straight up in the ground.

Haverford students, why do you do such silly things?

We plucked the fork from the ground and returned it to the DC. While rescuing a fork isn't exactly the same as preventing food waste, it is preventing waste. Students are constantly removing cutlery, plates, cups, bowls--you name it--from the DC. This costs the school money, because they have to replace it. This requires the DC to spend money replacing silverware instead of providing food. Maybe if students stopped removing such items, the DC could increase the quality of food with the money they'd save. Just a thought.

After returning the fork, we set off once again. I had to stop by the library, and we saw something interesting in the entryway: a banana and a cup of cereal sitting on the floor. I find this very strange. I understand you aren't supposed to take food in past this entryway into the main library, but is it necessary to leave it lying on the floor? Put it in your bag, backpack or something. So I snatched it up.

The banana looked decent, so I kept it. Tami pretty much disallowed me from eating the cereal--and all her talk of bacteria convinced me. However, I did decide to sprinkle the cereal outside for the birds and squirrels and recycle the cup. Much better than letting this stuff go to a landfill.

When I got back to my room and read Kristen's Food Waste Friday post, I was inspired by an extra call to action she included at the end of her post, urging others to think about their own waste. I loved the analogy she used, commenting about how a snow drift is made up of millions of tiny snowflakes. Little things add up to be big things. Every action you take to prevent food waste counts.

I wasn't planning on mentioning my small food failures this week, but Kristen reminded me that small things do matter. I dropped a piece of my broccoli on the floor in the DC. I refused to eat a mushroom I found in my mixed vegetables. I bit into a rotten apple and had to throw it away. I had to toss that cereal. On their own, none of these things seem like a big deal. But picturing these bits of food in a pile,  it'd add up to a quantity equivalent to good sized snack. And thats just this week.

Some people have implied that it's silly I even bother to write about my waste--In comparison to many Americans, I waste very little. But to me, food waste matters. If even slightly alter one person's thinking on the subject, I will be happy.