What did you learn about dietary choices from using the footprint calculator? Now imagine that you could translate what you learned into an effective societal policy on food- what would it be? And how would this policy effect the need to alleviate world hunger?
925 million people on earth do not have enough to eat according to the FAO [Food and Agricultural Organization]. That's almost 1 in 7 inhabitants of our planet!
Food & Hunger >
Community compost
Would it be that unreasonable to push for a community composting program to run alongside our already-present trash and recycling programs?
A community compost system would be amazing! Although it might be a bit difficult for everyone to cooperate and sort correctly. A personal composting system would be for great for people who enjoy gardening.
These systems are already in place in a lot of cities. I have personally had a compost pickup in every city I have ever lived in, to the point where not being able too seems strange. The problem is, as Carly mentions, while according to the EPA 24% of America's waste is compostable, according to the National Resource Defense Council (NRDC), only 8% of Americans compost their waste, including government sponsored programs like the ones in place all over the SF bay area where I live. Seeing as national compost week is right around the corner (May 2-8), consider petitioning your government to start such a program. The only way to create change is to push for it.
Where I live we have a composting program provided by the city alongside recycling and trash programs. It's fantastic! It has really helped me be more sensitive to which pieces of waste I throw where. It's very easy for me to tell the difference between trash and compost. It's an eye opener to how much waste humans make and for the more fortunate, all the food we throw away and take for granted. Plus it is composted rather then just sitting in the landfill. I highly suggest, like Colm, to push for a composting system.