The Man Behind France's New Food Waste Law Wants to Make it Global

[LongTomH]

From Addicting Info:

Last week France made headlines around the world after they passed an amendment to a larger law that makes it illegal for large supermarkets to throw away edible food. The amendment makes it so that any food that is not yet expired but would normally be thrown out now has to be given to charity, used for animal feed, or turned into biomass. The law itself wont officially be passed until Tuesday, but there isn’t any doubt that the law will be passed in full. Those who violate the law will face stiff penalties or jail time. Now the politician, who helped make that happen, is determined to expand the idea on a global scale. Arash Derambarsh is municipal councilor for the “Divers Droit” which in English translates to the “diverse right.”

M. Derambarsh described his own experiences as a literally starving law student for The Guardian:

“I have been insulted and attacked and accused of being naive and idealistic, but I became a local councillor because I wanted to help people. Perhaps it is naive to be concerned about other human beings, but I know what it is like to be hungry.

“When I was a law student living on about €400 ($437.48 U.S) a month after I’d paid my rent, I used to have one proper meal a day around 5pm. I’d eat pasta, or potatoes, but it’s hard to study or work if you are hungry and always thinking about where the next meal will come from.”

Derambarsh plans on working with ONE, to promote the removal of global food waste at the G20 economic summit held in Turkey this year, as well the COP21 Paris Climate talks.

Global food waste is a global scourge that hurts both the developed world and the developing one. A report from the United Nations released in 2013, found that globally the world wastes about 1.3 billion tons of food each year. That waste costs the global economy about $750 billion dollars every year as well. The amount of waste in the global food system also has terrible consequences for the environment. About 28% of the world’s agricultural lands are wasted on growing food that ends up being wasted. Those wasted crops also drink up an astounding amount of water. The U.N says that so much water is wasted it is the “equivalent to the annual flow of Russia’s Volga River”. The Volga River is the largest river in Europe. Global food waste is doing its part in wrecking the climate as well, causing an extra 3.8 billion tons of extra carbon pollution to be released into the atmosphere every year.

With the world facing a water crisis as well as an ongoing hunger crisis, this sounds like a damn good idea to me! Food banks, like Kansas City's Harvesters, could use some of this 'waste' food to distribute to the poor.

[hifiguy]

1. A damned good idea. nt

[BrotherIvan]

2. We all need to be thinking like this

How do we change our thinking from overconsumption to saving resources? The corporations have done a great job in lulling us into thinking that we can go on this way forever, but we can't. I applaud anyone trying to come up with solutions. They may not be the perfect ones the first time but it is a start and could lead to the correct one.

[kentauros]

12. I "think" one reason this isn't done in the US

is because the liability insurance policies of groceries (and restaurants) forbid them from giving away food or broken items. I don't know that for sure, but do know from working retail that any broken items we had returned by customers, or items broken in shipment (such as stemware), had to be further destroyed so that no one could get them out of the dumpster, hurt themselves with said item, and then sue. We often took damaged items home anyway, but I never did get to have any of that fine stemware. If one in a set of four was broken, we had to break the rest of them

Hopefully, a law like the one in France would supersede such insane policies.

[BrotherIvan]

13. That is true, but there can be workarounds

Our system of delivering food to market from far away lands is part of the problem. We need to totally overhaul how we get our food that includes things like community gardens as produce is the first thing to go in the trash.

[kentauros]

15. Community gardens and farms are great!

I'm not part of one, but will tell anyone I meet about them and how they work.

I recently discovered a community farm not far from here. Though that particular one is run by a church, it still produces a lot of food, grown by refugees to give them a means of making a living, as I understand the Plant-It-Forward group's mission

[BrotherIvan]

16. Cities need to change their laws re lawns and vegetable gardening

I love the idea of using vacant lots and the grass along sidewalks for food. The link below is a talk on doing "guerilla gardening" in the inner city that I loved. There isn't a lot of open land in the cities, but public land should be turned into gardens and I think kids, teens, and retired people encouraged to help to feed their communities. It's going to take a change of mind to get stuff like this done but I think the rewards in community building will be well worth it.

http://www.ted.com/talks/ron_finley_a_guerilla_gardener_in_south_central_la?language=en

?itok=lR2_PhnJ

[kentauros]

17. I love the "guerilla gardening" concept, too.

I remember one site that was making seed and soil "bombs" for the purpose of dropping them in bare spots, or tossing over fences into abandoned lots (if they are fenced.) Many times they just fill any bare spot, no matter how small, and tend the new plants, doing what they can to protect them from city employees tasked to remove all "weeds."

The gardens pictured above probably wouldn't have such problems, but filling the soil around a light pole or some other open yet small bit of ground would require more (and creative) efforts to protect them.

[BrotherIvan]

18. There's so much change we can make ourselves

But we have to change our minds first. I would start with the youth and get them involved in the growing of food and feeding their families. They would feel a sense of accomplishment and would also get outside for healthy exercise and fresh air. In the high school where I taught for a few years, two teachers, self-avowed super hippies, did an after school program on their own time where they planted a garden and anyone who helped could take food home. First off, the students LOVED it. Secondly, this was a very poor neighborhood and the food they took home was very welcome. It was a fantastic program and I'd love to see that in more schools. This was a high school so they had the physical ability to do the heavy work but that doesn't mean that with some help younger children couldn't do it. Plus it teaches them about where food comes from and the quality of food. It's a win win all over the place. I'd also like to see cooking classes come back to schools too so people learn how to make healthy food for themselves instead of relying on fast food or packaged meals. It seems that Europe hasn't lost touch as much with their food so they are more willing to adapt to new changes. The US has a long way to go, but it needs to start young.

[kentauros]

19. Gardening is therapeutic for so many.

I recall seeing it used to help rehabilitate convicts, maybe even to help ex-cons get readjusted back into society (can't remember for sure about that part.) One of the famous health-conscious chefs in San Francisco started a garden to help kids of all ages, and was quite successful. Jamie Oliver has had success teaching cooking to kids in LA as well as getting teachers to educate kids about food beyond the processed stuff. My favorite series of his, though, was "Jamie at Home" where he often used veggies and herbs from his home garden in his recipes.

I think enough people are getting this trend going, what with how popular farmers' markets have become again. Houston seems pretty well set up to do community gardens as I've seen them in depressed neighborhoods as well as gentrified ones. There's an urban farm not far from here run by a Baptist church for the sole purpose of feeding the poor (they don't sell to the general public.) We've certainly got the land here, and people are beginning to use it. Now we just need to get more people in houses to not be afraid of turning their front yards (and their backyards) into food-gardens. I can think of just two in my neighborhood out of how many hundreds?

[BrotherIvan]

20. Absolutely

I know that here in California, sometimes the city won't let you garden in your front yard. It's a shame. But as people are going to have to save water, their grass will go brown and maybe they will replant a garden and there will be so many the city will have to let it go.

And they look great too

[kentauros]

21. That's beautiful!

I love the two chairs in there, too. Who says food crops can't be as beautiful as inedible flowers?

[BrotherIvan]

22. To a person who likes to eat and to cook as much as I do

That looks mighty be-you-ti-ful to me! I would love something like that if I had a house.

[bananas]

3. k&r nt

[jwirr]

4. About a month ago MSNBC had a program on food waste and once in a while since then there have

been ads asking people to respond about how the program made a difference in their lives. Wonder if the two plans are linked.

[KamaAina]

5. California could do this as a ballot initiative

but Big Ag would go ballistic and throw big buck$$$ into defeating it, as they did with GMO-labeling Prop 37.

[LongTomH]

6. The way to introduce laws like this in the US would be city by city......

......the way increases in minimum wages have been increased. That dilutes the influence of big money types.

[BrotherIvan]

14. Good point

[SoapBox]

7. The defeat of the GMO labeling, still makes my blood boil.

I do love this idea though!

[NaturalHigh]

8. I'm cool with that.

So long as safety protocols are in place, I think this is a fantastic idea.

[LongTomH]

11. Under the French law, food that is truly unfit for human consumption would be composted.......

.......not sent to a landfill. No waste of biomass.

[Enthusiast]

9. Kicked and recommended a whole bunch!

[Thespian2]

10. K & R !!!!

One good way to help feed the hungry...