Project-Based Learning: Food Waste & Garbology

By the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. FAO’s work on measurement and support to countries taking action to reduce food loss and waste is critical to the progress made by those countries.

The Society of St. Andrew is dedicated to the twofold mission of preventing food waste and ending hunger.

Feeding America partners with food manufacturers, grocery stores, restaurants, and farmers to rescue food and deliver it to food banks serving our neighbors.

There are a number of plant parts capable of regenerating growth that results in more of the same plant. By Jenny Peterson for Fix.com

Getting food from the farm to table eats up 10 percent of the U.S. energy budget, uses 50 percent of U.S. land, and 80 percent of all freshwater consumed in the United States. Yet, 40 percent of food in the U.S. today goes uneaten. This means that Americans are throwing out the equivalent of $165 billion each year, and the uneaten food ends up rotting in landfills as the single largest component of U.S. municipal solid waste and accounts for a large portion of U.S. methane emissions. By the non-profit National Resources Defense Council.

Interview with "Garbology" author, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Edward Humes. (Both text and audio) From NPR.org.

The "GPGP" is one of many areas of ocean littered with plastic trash. Larger items like fishing nets or plastic shopping bags are the most visible components of ocean debris, however up to 51 trillion microplastic particles float in our oceans. From TreeHugger.com

Whether it's indulgent food choices, sexual habits or North Korean secrets, the stuff that people throw away can reveal all. By Chris Baraniuk, from the BBC.

The Smithsonian’s Recycling Task Force formed in 2010 to improve waste diversion at the Smithsonian Institution. Waste diversion is the act of redirecting waste to a second use (recycling, composting) instead of sending it to a landfill.