For our action project, Tova, Ryan, Elyse and I worked to promote Food Lifeline’s Seattle’s Table, a nonprofit organization designed to deliver surplus food, that is otherwise destined to be composted or thrown away, to meal programs throughout King County. This program has a twofold impact on the Anthropocene, reducing food waste and feeding the hungry.
With our action project now complete, I have become ever more aware of the interconnectedness of our earth. Food waste impacts so many different aspects of our earth system, which I had not considered prior to my research into the problem and participation in a solution through Food Lifeline. I had been ignorant to how far reaching and destructive food waste can be, to our environment and to the hungry. And to think that the origins of so much of wasted food is rooted in the culture surrounding food is horrifying. The majority of food does not go to waste because the food is in some was damaged or spoiled, but because of ridiculous cosmetic standards and gluttonous eating habits. In a country with excesses food, for many there is no shame in tossing food we didn’t like or were to full to finish, perpetuating the mindset and ideology of waste in our society. To see so much of our food — good, eatable food–go to waste when so many people in our country alone go hungry each day, is tragic. Additionally, the over production of food has led to the drastic altering of our planet. Rainforest have been leveled to make room for agriculture, leaving hundreds and thousands of species without a home. Deep underground coffers of water have been depleted to water our crops, only for half of them to be left to rot. The effects of food waste expand far beyond the producer and consumer, demonstrating all to clearly that humans are not separate from other species, the environment or our planet.