Latest news with #foodwaste
The Sun
17 hours ago
- General
- The Sun
I thought I was getting a tasty pizza from Too Good To Go but it was so bad people think it was ‘dine-in leftovers'
A WOMAN was left baffled after making her first Too Good To Go order – only to find her pizza chucked in a plastic bag when she went to collect it. Victoria Scholes paid £3.70 to nab a bargain pizza from a local eatery, but the grub didn't look too appetising. 3 3 3 Rather tan using a carboard pizza box, as one might expect, the restaurant put loose slices in a plastic carrier bag for her instead. After collection her meal, Victoria, 32, took to TikTok to show off her pizza - and the video soon went viral. 'I didn't realise until I got to the car that the bag had no other packaging and the pizza slices were just tossed inside,' she told What's The Jam. 'I was shocked but because it was my first time using the app, I didn't know if this was standard protocol – which is why I posted the TikTok asking other people about their experiences.' Sharing the video on TikTok, Victoria can be heard giggling in shock as she shows the pile of pizza slices in the bag. One person commented: 'I'd be scared they're giving me peoples leftovers.' 'That's a left over pizza from dine in 1000%,' another user guessed. Someone else wrote: 'Man my standards are so low I would've eaten it without a second thought.' 'How my purse looks after the bar,' joked another viewer. Another person added: 'This is unacceptable. Wtf.' [sic] The Sun tries Wetherspoons' new menu Victoria, from Peterborough, Ontario, Canada, contacted Too Good To Go and was issued a refund and an apology. She claims they told her it was a 'lapse in service' and called it 'absolutely unacceptable and not hygienic at all' to serve pizza in a plastic bag. Victoria added: 'It's not a lot of money but I wanted a refund for the principle.' Despite the experience, she says it hasn't put her off of the app – though she won't be ordering from that particular pizza place again. The 'right' way to store food 1. Use Airtight Containers This helps to prevent exposure to air which can cause your food to go off. A glass container can help to be more hygienic and a sustainable option. 2. Label Everything By labelling your food it helps to keep track of expiry dates and avoid food waste. 3. Store Like Items Together This makes it easier to find what you are looking for. Use fridge dividers or reusabale bags to help section your fridge. 4. Use the Fridge and Freezer Wisely Keep raw meat on the bottom shelf to avoid contamination, and use the freezer for longer-term storage. 5. Rotate Your Stock Place newer items at the back and bring the older ones forward. This will mean you will be able to notice the foods that need eating first. How does Too Good To Go work? To use Too Good To Go, download its app on your smartphone and create an account. You can then select your area by entering your location and drop the pin on where you'll be picking up your surplus food bags. On the app, you can select the distance you'd be willing to travel, based on whether you'll be walking, using public transport or driving. The app will then show you the Too Good To Go locations available in your area. These are grouped in categories including supermarkets, groceries and baked goods. There are also options to collect food straight away, or later for dinner. You can then scroll through the app to see what's available and click "see all" to check all the options within a category. Too Good To Go will then tell you how much you can save with each surprise bag. Prices usually range between £2 and £6, with shoppers saving at least 30% on every order. When clicking on a listing, you will get information on the exact location of the cafe, restaurant or supermarket, as well as collection times available, and the price of the bag. The listing also shows the average rating other users have given that particular business. Once you've decided what you want to pick up, simply click the "reserve" button to ensure it is assigned to you. collection. Then go to the shop at the assigned time, show your collection on the app to a staff member and enjoy your discounted surplus food.
CBS News
2 days ago
- Business
- CBS News
Reusable metal lunch trays help Massachusetts school district cut down on food waste
Schools in Needham, Massachusetts have cut down on their food waste by replacing their old cafeteria lunch trays with reusable metal ones and they're already seeing results. "Food service departments contribute a lot to waste. I'm always looking for new, different ways to reduce," said Director of Nutrition Services Emily Murphy. Reducing food waste at schools They found the answer with reusable stainless steel trays. In just a matter of months, they have diverted more than 245,000 single-use trays from landfills. "Single-use trays was our biggest contributor to waste and also our biggest expense," said Murphy. It's part of a recent partnership with Brooklyn-based Re:Dish, a company on a mission to replace single-use products in big eating environments like schools. "In the first week, they went from 18 barrels of trash to six," said Re:Dish founder and CEO Caroline Vanderlip. Bulk dishware washed and reused Needham owns the trays but Re:Dish picks up, washes, and returns bulk dishware. Which means there's no need for the school to install industrial dishwashers, or pay people to load them. "So it's a huge waste reduction measure," said Vanderlip. Previously, the district used compostable trays that school officials said inevitably ended up in the trash. Murphy said the metal trays also work better. "It's a larger tray, so students can fit more food on their tray and it's more durable. So a lot of times the compostable ones bend and they're flimsy," said Murphy. Once students are finished with their lunch, they follow a simple process to discard their waste. They self-sort their trash, from their recycling, from their compostable scraps, before the tray hedas back to the Re:Dish facility, and the cycle begins again. "What schools allow us to do as a society is teach kids at an early age that throwing everything away after one use doesn't make sense. And even since we started Re:Dish five years ago, I have seen literally a sea change in people's recognition that disposability is not the answer," said Vanderlip.
CBC
2 days ago
- Business
- CBC
3 apps that can save you money on supper tonight while also fighting food waste
Did you know Canadian households produce an average of nearly 80 kilograms of food waste every year? That's on top of the nearly 1.31 million tonnes of food that grocery stores toss out annually. All that rotting food is harming the environment, and wasting money, during a time of food insecurity and skyrocketing prices. But there are ways to do your part to prevent food waste and save cash in the process. Listen below to learn about three apps you can use to save money on your meals tonight — and save that food from being tossed into a dumpster. Love deals? Click here for more Deal Diva segments for more great tips on saving money.
Fast Company
2 days ago
- Health
- Fast Company
Colorado's landfills generate as much pollution as driving 1 million cars for a year
Remember the banana peels, apple cores, and leftover pizza you recently threw in the garbage? Today, your food waste—and your neighbors'—is emitting climate-warming greenhouse gases as it decomposes in a nearby municipal landfill. Buried food scraps and yard waste at 51 dumps across Colorado generate an amount of methane equivalent to driving 1 million gasoline-powered cars for a year. About 80 times as potent as carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas over a period of 20 years, methane accounts for 11% of global emissions that scientists say are warming the atmosphere and contributing to more intense and severe weather, wildfires, and drought. Landfills are the third-largest source of methane pollution in Colorado, after agriculture and fossil fuel extraction. Draft methane rules released last month by the state's Department of Public Health and Environment would, for the first time, require some dump operators to measure and quantify methane releases and to fix leaks. The proposal mandates that waste managers install a gas collection system if their dump generates a certain amount of the climate-warming gas. It also addresses loopholes in federal law that allow waste to sit for five years before such systems are required—even though science has shown that half of all food waste decays within about three and a half years. The draft rule surpasses U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standards in the amount of landfill area operators must monitor for emissions. It's set to be heard by the state's Air Quality Control Commission in August. Proposed regulations require the elimination of open gas flares—burning emissions directly into the atmosphere—and urge the use of biocovers and biofilters, which rely on bacteria to break down gases. The 70-page draft also calls for more routine and thorough monitoring of a dump surface with advanced technologies like satellites, which recently recorded large plumes of methane escaping from a Denver-area landfill. 'We've had our eyes opened thanks to technology that has made the invisible, visible—now we know the extent of the problem, which is much greater than what estimates have portrayed,' said Katherine Blauvelt, circular economy director at Industrious Labs, a nonprofit working to decarbonize industry. 'When landfill operators fail to control leaks, we know harmful pollutants are coming along for the ride.' Cancer-causing volatile organic compounds, such as benzene and toluene, escape with methane leaching from landfills. These chemicals also contribute to the formation of lung-damaging ozone pollution, an increasing problem for the 3.6 million people who live in the greater Denver metropolitan area. Indeed, the region along the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains ranked sixth in the nation for the most polluted air—with unhealthy ozone levels reported on one out of every 10 days, on average, according to the American Lung Association's 2025 'State of the Air' report. The state is also woefully behind in its compliance with federal air quality standards. State officials and environmental advocates agree that reducing methane emissions from landfills, which are easier to mitigate than cow burps, for example, is one of the quickest and most efficient ways to slow warming in the short term. 'Waste deposited in landfills continues producing methane for decades as it breaks down—and it's one sector where Colorado has yet to directly take action to reduce these greenhouse gases,' said Tim Taylor, a supervisor in the state's air pollution control division, in an online hearing last February on the proposed landfill methane rules. Colorado's draft regulations are similar to those in California, Oregon, Maryland, and Washington, he added. More than 10 landfills in the state are already required under federal rules to have gas collection and control systems. Yet even with such technology in place, disposal facilities routinely exceed federal methane emissions caps. The state's health department has also identified a dozen municipal solid waste landfills, based on a preliminary analysis, that would be required to put such systems in place under the proposed rules, Zachary Aedo, an agency spokesman, said in an email to Capital & Main. Many of these facilities are operated by counties, some of which expressed concerns about their ability to pay for such systems. 'We are a small rural county, and a multimillion-dollar containment system is going to be more than we can build,' testified Delta County Commissioner Craig Fuller at the February hearing. 'The financial equation of this whole thing is absolutely mind-boggling—we are struggling as it is to provide health and human services.' Other county officials embraced the proposed tightening of rules. 'Landfills across Colorado, including in Eagle County, are leading sources of methane pollution,' said Eagle County Commissioner Matt Scherr in a March 6 statement. 'As a local elected official I support a robust rule that embraces advanced technologies to cut pollution, protect public health and help the methane mitigation industry thrive.' For larger landfill companies, like Waste Management, which operates 283 active disposal sites nationwide, figuring out which technology works to best monitor emissions from a dump's surface is proving a complex challenge. The company is testing technologies at facilities with different topographies and climate fluctuations to understand what causes emissions releases, said Amy Banister, Waste Management senior director of air programs. 'Landfills are complicated, emissions vary over time, and we have emissions 24/7,' said Banister at an online meeting last September of a technical group created by Colorado health department officials. 'Drones produced a lot of false positives—and we need more work understanding how fixed sensors can be applied in a landfill environment.' State health officials suggested municipalities could offset the costs of installing gas collection systems at disposal sites by converting methane into energy. Several landfill operations in Colorado currently have such waste-to-energy systems —which send power they generate to the state's power grid. 'We are mindful of the costs of complying with this rule and how tipping fees may be impacted,' said Taylor, an air quality supervisor, at the February hearing. 'Analyses conducted in other states of their landfill methane rules found there wasn't an increase in tipping fees as a result of regulations over time.' Tipping fees are paid by those who dispose of waste in a landfill. If operators passed on compliance costs to households, a state analysis found, the yearly average annual fee would increase $22.90 per household. Colorado's push comes as the EPA issued an enforcement alert in September that found 'recurring Clean Air Act compliance issues' at municipal solid waste landfills that led to the 'significant release of methane,' based on 100 inspections conducted over three years. Such violations included improper design and installation of gas collection and control systems, failure to maintain adequate 'cover integrity,' and improper monitoring of facilities for emissions. To address gaps in federal regulations, which require operators to measure emissions four times a year by walking in a grid pattern across the face of the landfill with a handheld sensor, Colorado's draft rules require third-party monitoring. Such measurements must be conducted offsite by an entity approved by the state's air pollution control division that uses a satellite, aircraft or mobile monitoring platform. The infrequency of such grid walks—which skip spots that operators deem dangerous—contributes to the undercounting of methane emissions from landfills, according to a satellite-based analysis. An international team of scientists estimated potent greenhouse gas emissions from landfills are 50% higher than EPA estimates. Satellites like one operated by nonprofit Carbon Mapper found large methane plumes outside the quarterly monitoring periods over the Tower Landfill in Commerce City, northeast of Denver. The satellite allowed scientists to see parts of the landfill not accessible with traditional monitoring—measurements that found that such landfills are underreporting their methane emissions to state regulators, said Tia Scarpelli, a research scientist and waste sector lead at Carbon Mapper. 'Landfill emissions tend to be quite persistent—if a landfill is emitting when it's first observed, it's likely to be emitting later on,' she added. Scarpelli cautioned that it's important for regulators to investigate with operators what was happening on the landfill surface at the time the leak was measured. Tower Landfill's operator, Allied Waste Systems of Colorado, provided reasons for such large methane releases in a January 2024 report to the state's health department, including equipment malfunctions. The fix for about 22 emissions events over the federal methane limits detected in August 2023 by surface monitoring: 'Soil added as cover maintenance.' Like many dumps across Colorado and the nation, the Tower Landfill is located near a community that's already disproportionately impacted by emissions from industrial activities. 'These landfills are not only driving climate change, they are also driving a public health crisis in our community,' said Guadalupe Solis, director of environmental justice programs at Cultivando, a nonprofit led by Latina and Indigenous women in northern Denver. 'The Tower Landfill is near nursing homes, clinics, near schools with majority Hispanic students.' Physicians in the state warned that those who live the closest to dumps suffer the worst health effects from pollutants like benzene and hydrogen sulfide, which are linked to cancer, heart, and other health conditions. 'People living near landfills, like myself, my family and my patients, experience higher exposure to air pollution,' testified Dr. Nikita Habermehl, a specialist in pediatric emergency medicine who lives near a landfill in Larimer County, at the February 26 public hearing, 'leading to increased rates of respiratory issues and headaches and asthma worsened by poor air quality.'
Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Health
- Daily Mail
THE CANNY COOK: Runner beans with parmesan pangrattato
Have you noticed how breadcrumbs have had a glow-up? They've come a long way from the brown, sandy crumbs I knew as a kid. A few years ago we discovered Japanese panko breadcrumbs, spiky shards that are brilliant for coating meat and fish. Now we can't get enough of pangrattato, which I see more and more on restaurant menus. Pangrattato, which means 'grated bread' in Italian, is usually the stale ends that have been whizzed or broken up into crumbs then fried in olive oil and garlic. Other seasonings, like chopped herbs, chilli flakes or lemon zest, can be added. Even in its simplest incarnation, pangrattato is golden, salty and crunchy: a superb textural condiment to garnish vegetables, fish and meat. In rural Italian cuisine, it is sometimes called 'poor man's parmesan', sprinkled over pasta, risotto and soup as an affordable alternative to cheese – a good example of the tradition for avoiding food waste. (It's also handy if you're cooking for vegans.) In addition, it's a great way to accessorise green veg. In this week's recipe, I've added parmesan and lemon zest to the crumbs for an extra hit of umami flavour and scattered them over runner beans, an underrated vegetable that's in season now. METHOD For the pangrattato, remove and discard any crusts from the stale bread, then pulse to coarse breadcrumbs in a food processor. Heat 1½ tbsp olive oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat. Finely grate or crush 1 garlic clove and fry for a minute until fragrant. Tip in the breadcrumbs and a pinch of salt and fry, stirring regularly, until golden (3-5 minutes). Meanwhile, trim the beans and slice thinly on the diagonal. Tip the pangrattato into a bowl and toss in the zest of ½ lemon and the grated parmesan. Wipe out the pan, add 1 tbsp oil and turn the heat to medium-high. Fry the beans with a large pinch of salt for 7-8 minutes until tender. Squeeze in a little lemon juice, then take off the heat and transfer to a serving bowl. Scatter with the pangrattato (you may not need it all) and serve. Any leftover pangrattato can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for a week. *This cost assumes you already have some basic store-cupboard ingredients. prices taken from aldi and correct at time of going to press.
