Tags: food

The Department of Education and the Department of Sanitation jointly run the “Organics Collection Program,” which diverts organic materials such as food scraps, soiled paper, yard waste out of the landfill stream and into regional collection centers and the Anaerobic Digest-er Eggs, which extract methane from decomposing organic matter into energy.

With a population of nearly 5.4 million people on less than 300 square miles of land, Singapore is the third densest country in the world. Once a part of Malaysia, it became an independent nation in 1965, and by doing so, the new island city-state began to increasingly rely on importing food to feed its people.

A bill was recently passed to ban Polystyrene Foam (also known as Styrofoam) in New York City’s food service, joining cities like Portland, Oregon; San Francisco; Seattle; and Amherst, Massachusetts. Most recycling programs, including New York City’s, do not accept Foam Plastics for recycling because the material necessitates separate processing and must be kept exceptionally clean.

The complex relationship between cities and agriculture was a hot topic this spring at the “Feeding Cities” conference at the University of Pennsylvania. Growing populations are demanding more food, as well as increasing the geographic footprint of cities. Once fertile land on the outskirts of cities is being developed, and agriculture has become dominated by large scale corporate farming, which further complicates food distribution issues. 

A new study released this week by the Natural Resources Defense Council found that 40 percent of food produced in the United States ends up in the trash, making food waste the single largest portion of trash in our landfills.