At Coolseats, we love whenever, however, and wherever you reduce, avoid, and end your food waste, working to maintain our beloved earth as we know it.
Our project is not only about Coolseats, but also about empowering individuals, business, offices, and anyone in between working to save waste to save the planet. By encouraging composting, we aim to spark change encouraging further food (and other) waste prevention.
• A coolseats at Tremaine’s Mill, Bathurst, NSW, Australia
In April 2010, Hyder Consulting published a report analysing the first eight months of a year-long home composting project implemented in Randwick and Waverly councils as a part of a grant from the NSW Environmental Trust. In this project, households were provided trainings/educational information and a composting bin to encourage composting over tossing food. In addition to measuring the project’s environmental impacts, the report also analysed four “ecologically sustainable development indicators”, or ESDs. The impacts of composting on ESD1, which measures “avoidance of food waste”, are of particular interest.
Audits of 60 of the participating households were performed immediately prior to project commencement and in February 2010, six months into the project. Each time, the amount of food waste tossed into the residual bin was measured. After 6 months of home composting, the audits found a 43% reduction in the amount of food waste tossed into the residual bin. The study found the impact of composting on reduction of food waste to be “excellent”.
Explaining and reducing the source food waste is not a simple task, especially when many households do not necessarily know the amount of food they waste day-to-day. For instance, one shocking study published in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics indicated that Americans waste nearly 1/3 of their food. Composting – or even just measuring the amount of food wasted – provides a hands-on experience with food waste beyond simply tossing it in the bin; in turn, we may become more conscious of the quantity of food wasted and attempt to reduce it. These actions provide an opportunity to and actively reflect on and work towards waste reduction. As is written on the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s website:
the first step to reducing food waste is to measure it.
We hope that the Coolseats Food Waste calculator, discussed in depth in our most recent blog, serves as a useful tool for anyone at home to take that first step.
Sample food waste tracker from the Coolseats food waste calculator.
We have already seen the positive impacts of such composting and measurement systems. Once Café Giulia, a partner of Coolseats, began composting, they noticed other ways to reduce waste, including donating coffee grounds for gardening, giving away free compost to customers, and using old potato sacks to improve composting efficiency. More details about their methods can be read about in this blog post (link) and watched in this YouTube playlist (https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1sGen0zAj-XQIfXastB3qj5bPxuKurTk).
For us at home, reducing the food waste we track and compost may still rightfully seem like a daunting task. However, there are tons of resources available with tips for strategies such as reusing leftovers and creatively using typically wasted food parts. Love Food Hate Waste NSW, who has been a helpful partner to Coolseats, is one such resource.
Food waste reduction tips from the European Food Information Council.
Going forwards, we hope you take the leap into composting – you never know what you may learn.