“Waste not, want not!” That’s what my mother used to tell me. In the United States, 40 percent of the food grown is never eaten. And there are plenty of people who are wanting, both in the U.S. and abroad. What is worse is that a lot of the wasted food goes into landfills where it decomposes slowly and generates methane, a greenhouse gas that is much worse than carbon dioxide. What can you do at home? Buy what you need and use what you buy. Freeze food before it goes bad. Turn your scraps into compost, whether in your back yard, with the county pick-up if you are fortunate enough to live in parts of the county where the green bin program has been implemented, or by taking them to Mom’s Organic Market in Jessup. (Hint: Check https://www.howardcountymd.gov/Departments/Public-Works/Bureau-Of-Environmental-Services/Curbside-Collections/Feed-the-Green-Bin to see if you are in the Howard Count green bin zone.) You can find more information about food waste at https://www.nrdc.org/issues/food-waste#priority-what-you-do.
One Comment
Katie
If you can’t compost at home and don’t have compost pick up where, you can collect vegetable scraps in a container in your freezer and then bring them to Mom’s Organic Market in Jessup for compost. Then the scraps won’t get smelly on your kitchen counter.