Mission to Elimination: Food Waste
By: Kayla Hayman, Britney Brito, Taina Valentin, and Alexa Barisano
When one thinks of New York City, we usually think “dirty” since streets are covered in trash that just piles up on the street for pickup. This trash encourages other New Yorkers to continue to throw away food that can easily be used for another purpose like composting. Converting NYC into a zero-waste town is necessary to reduce food waste and help create a better Anthropocene. Nothing should be thrown away especially considering that nearly everything can have a second purpose. The growing awareness of the Anthropocene has promoted hopeful solutions for the road to a zero-waste town. Restaurants have implemented cycles where food is grown, cooked, and leftovers are used as compost. Drop off sites and curbside composting services have allowed New Yorkers to bring in their food scraps to be collected and dropped off at the Green Markets and NYC Compost Project Partners. These organizations have made it their mission to make it known that composting is one of the simplest solutions to organic food waste and climate change as a whole where anyone can get involved. Gardening has always been a way where people can grow fresh produce to implement into their own daily meals. Because these solutions are already in existence it will be a matter of having education and the media on our side to change mindsets and make people open to these solutions. The youth and the power of the media can shake the world and shake NYC.We must start looking at waste differently and be mindful of its many uses. In the city that never sleeps, New Yorkers have the capacity to understand that there’s no “away” when we throw away our trash. A majority of our waste can and must be recycled or composted.
Hi guys! I thought your research topic was incredibly intriguing and increasingly important today. Your poster was simultaneously very informative and engaging, and I loved how you incorporated TikToker’s efforts in eliminating food waste (also, I loved the farmers’ faces)!! Awesome work!
Hey. First of all this project idea was something I would’ve never thought of and it is so important. And second you are all absolutely right. people are too lazy. If things aren’t in front of people’s faces they aren’t going to put the effort in to do it. This research is so important not just as a conversation starter about ways in which people can use wasted food to cultivate new food, but as a conversation starter about how much food we waste and how evil it is that we throw away so much food that could’ve fed our poorest New Yorkers. Thank you for this amazing work!