It’s Kuhl To Recycle: Food To The Rescue

Pitching In To Pick The Low-Hanging Fruit

An estimated 40 percent of the U.S. food supply goes uneaten each year. That means the water, energy, agricultural chemicals, and labor required to produce and process that food is also wasted.

In these pages we’ve discussed ways to reduce food waste at home, but in truth much of the country’s wasted food does not pass through our homes. Instead it is wasted somewhere along the supply chain. Diverting supply chain food waste to hungry people may be considered low hanging fruit (pun intended) and in recent years various nonprofits (and the occasional for-profit company) have arrived to address this waste.

Denver nonprofit We Don’t Waste collects food from around 150 providers and redistributes it to around 60 nonprofits that provide food to hungry people. The for-profit Colorado Springs company FoodMaven sells local, oversupplied and imperfect food from distributors, manufacturers and producers to restaurants and institutional kitchens at a discount.

If you have a chance to support one of the many local food rescue organizations, please pitch in to help them achieve their important social and environmental cause.

Mark Kuhl is an environmental advocate who lives in Park Hill with his family. His handy tips and news about recycling household items appear every month in these pages. A directory of his past columns for recycling everything from paint to Styrofoam to shoes is at greaterparkhill.org/sustainability/recycling-directory/.