The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the City of Dallas and AT&T Stadium, Rock and Wrap It Up! and Food Source DFW have joined together to cut the amount of food that goes to waste. During the recent NCAA Final Four activities in North Texas they diverted 2,800 pounds of leftover food from landfills by delivering food to local homeless shelters.
"EPA's Food Recovery Program partners in the Dallas-Fort Worth area have made significant contributions to reducing food waste in our communities," said EPA Regional Administrator Ron Curry. "As climate change affects our food supply, finding new ways to use all we produce will only become more important."
Diverting food waste from landfills also reduces the generation of harmful gases that contribute to climate change. When food is disposed of in a landfill, it decomposes rapidly and becomes a significant source of methane, a potent greenhouse gas that contributes to climate change. After paper, food waste comprises the greatest volume of waste going into our nation's landfills. In 2012, 36 million tons of food waste were generated, but only 3 percent of this waste stream was diverted from landfills.
Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings credits advanced planning by the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center's operations staff and hospitality partner Centerplate for assuring the success of the city's Good Neighbor donation program. "We knew Bracket Town was going to be huge, so we test drove our food donation operations during several events in March," Rawlings said. "We took the lessons learned during Final Four and have expanded the Good Neighbor program to also include materials donations. Currently three homeless service providers receive unconsumed food and materials from events at the convention center."
The Food Recovery Challenge is part of the EPA's Sustainable Materials Management Program, which seeks to reduce the environmental impact of food and other widely-used everyday items through their entire life cycle, including how they are extracted, manufactured, distributed, used, reused, recycled, and disposed.
