How To End The Food Waste Fiasco | Rob Greenfield | TEDxTeen

Rob Greenfield, an environmental activist and adventurer, introduces himself as a dumpster diver with the goal of promoting positive change on Earth. He shares his experiences from a bike ride across the country on a bamboo bicycle, emphasizing his minimal environmental impact by using only 160 gallons of water and producing just two pounds of trash in 104 days. Greenfield also discusses his lifestyle choices, such as living off the grid in a tiny house and traveling without money to experience the world authentically. His discovery of the abundance of good food in dumpsters across the U.S. leads him to question the amount of food waste and its environmental implications.

This paragraph delves into the issue of food waste in the United States, with Greenfield sharing his dumpster diving experiences in various cities and the staggering amounts of good food he found. He reveals that the U.S. wastes $165 billion worth of food annually, which is more than the combined budgets of national parks, public libraries, veteran's healthcare, federal prisons, the FBI, and the FDA. Greenfield's 'food waste fiasco' project involved collecting food from dumpsters and displaying it in public spaces to raise awareness. Despite his efforts to not distribute the food, people often took it, demonstrating the quality of the discarded food and the need to address food waste and hunger.

Greenfield addresses the misconception that grocery stores are legally liable for food donations that might cause illness, explaining that the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Act of 1996 protects them from such liability. Despite this protection, he notes that there has never been a lawsuit against a grocery store, restaurant, or caterer for donated food. He questions why, with the existence of food rescue programs, grocery stores still waste food instead of donating it, attributing the issue to a lack of knowledge or care, focusing on profit rather than a triple-bottom line of people, planet, and profit.

In the final paragraph, Greenfield outlines a three-step approach for grocery stores to combat food waste: 'Reduce', 'Reuse', and 'Recycle'. He suggests reducing the production of excess food by relaxing cosmetic standards for produce and clarifying the meanings of 'sell-by' and 'best-by' dates. For reusing, he proposes repurposing overripe fruits into juices and wilted vegetables into soups, and donating food to non-profits. Lastly, for recycling, he recommends feeding food to animals or composting as a last resort, while emphasizing that composting recovers only a tiny fraction of the energy used to produce the food. Greenfield calls for consumer action, urging individuals to demand ugly produce, support local farmers, and lead by example in reducing food waste and hunger.