Small and consistent wins the day. And the year.
Earth Day is today, and Hungry Harvest asked if they could sponsor me to write an Earth Day post (and run a giveaway for you guys!). Of course, I said yes. Giveaway details are at the end of the post.
I have mixed feelings about Earth Day.
It's not that I don't care about the environment.
But as with all annual observances (Father's Day, Mother's Day, Valentine's Day, etc.), there's a chance of Earth Day not making much of a difference.
For example, if you go all out for Valentine's Day but then treat your significant other poorly the rest of the year, Valentine's Day has little value.
And in the same way, if you get all lathered up about Earth Day but you spend the rest of the year doing nothing to help the planet, Earth Day hasn't been worth much.
As Gretchen Rubin is fond of saying, what you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while.
So, while I see the value of marking Earth Day each year, I think what matters more are the small, consistent ways we can help the planet on the other 364 days of the year.
Food waste is a huge challenge for our environment, and unlike some other enormous environmental problems, this one is something we can actually do something about.
We can make a difference, right here in our own homes! And if every household made some small anti-food-waste efforts every day, imagine what could happen.
What's the big problem with food waste?
On average, American households throw away up to 40% of the food they buy.
That's a lot of edibles going to waste.
($1600/household/year, actually.)
The uneaten food generally ends up in the landfills, where it adds bulk and also slowly releases methane gas.
According to Climate Central, "If food waste could be represented as its own country, it would be the third largest greenhouse gas emitter, behind China and the U.S."
Yikes.
The supply chain also is at fault for producing food waste.
Excess produce from growers often doesn't get sold to grocery stores, and perfectly edible produce that's too small, too big, too uneven, or too ugly is also rejected by grocers (since consumers are picky about how their produce looks).
Plus, lots of resources, like water and oil, go into producing food, and when that food is wasted, those resources have gone to waste as well.
What can you do to help reduce food waste?
Feeling inspired? Great. I have three ideas to get you started!
1. Reduce food waste in your home.
On a household level, you can take baby steps to use up your food instead of throwing it away. Buy only what you need, and when it doubt, freeze what you can't use.
I know it's hard, and I know it takes some extra work, but even if you made one or two small changes a habit, you could save pounds and pounds of food in a year's time.
Plus, you will save money. Every time you chuck food into the trash, it's like you're throwing dollar bills away.
And if you're reading a blog called The Frugal Girl, heaven knows you don't like to throw dollar bills away.
To get you started, here are my top ten ways to avoid food waste.
2. Start a compost bin.
Moment of honesty: I do not love composting. I know some people are way into it, but I only do it because I'm convinced of its environmental value.
While it's best to use up all the food you buy, when you have a compost bin, you can at least turn your moldy fruits and veggies into nutritious food for the soil. That's far better than sending it to the landfill to release methane!
Plus, you can compost all sorts of other produce scraps like pineapple peels, watermelon rinds, apple cores, and other inedibles that you'd normally throw away (plus things like tea bags, egg shells, shredded paper, leaves, and cardboard!)
Here's how my compost bin works, and for more ideas, you can search the web and read info from passionate composters. 😉
3. Sign up for Hungry Harvest deliveries.
Hungry Harvest rescues perfectly good produce that would otherwise not be eaten, boxes it up, and delivers it right to your doorsteps.
Rejected produce could be ugly, randomly sized, or just excess. No matter the cause for rejection, Hungry Harvest gives these fruits and veggies a brand new lease on life.
I love, love, love that Hungry Harvest provides a way for us consumers to help make a change both inside and outside of our own households. You and I can't individually rescue unwanted produce, or change the way that growers and grocers operate.
We're just too small on our own.
But with the help of Hungry Harvest, we have so much more power! We can rescue food and encourage change in the food system by becoming Hungry Harvest customers.
To learn more about the overall impact Hungry Harvest deliveries have made on the environment, check out the special Earth Day page on their website.
Getting a Hungry Harvest box each week is a way that you can consistently do something good for the earth all year long.
And as a side benefit, a Hungry Harvest box can do something good for your body all year long as well!
I find that having a produce box inspires me to eat way more veggies than I would otherwise, and that has to be a boon for my health.
Where does Hungry Harvest deliver?
Here's a list of all the areas they deliver, from Jersey to Miami.
If you're not lucky enough to be in their service area, sign up for the waitlist right here. Hungry Harvest is rapidly expanding, and they use the waitlist to help determine where they want to open up deliveries. Help bring them to your area!
How can I sign up for Hungry Harvest?
I'm so glad you asked! Visit Hungry Harvest's site, where you can easily and quickly sign up for an account.
Do you have a discount code for me?
Yup, yup! Use code FRUGALGIRL5 to get $5 off your first harvest. (expires June 1, 2018)
What about that giveaway??
To celebrate Earth Day, Hungry Harvest wants to give one Frugal Girl reader a free month (4 weeks) of Hungry Harvest deliveries.
Excellent!
To enter, leave a comment telling me your favorite small way to consistently help the planet.
(and if you haven't got one to share, it's totally ok to say, "I just really want to win the Hungry Harvest boxes!")
NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Void where prohibited. Odds of winning depend upon the number of entrants. Winner must reside within the current Hungry Harvest delivery area. Winner will be notified via email address left in comment form.
Great post, the food waste in America has always disgusted me. To this day I still meet people who would never consider eating leftovers, they just toss them out. It's disgusting.
I want to mention rain barrels to save and reuse water. I capture all of the rain from my roof in two barrels and use it to water all of my plants during growing season, as well as wash my car and refill my koi pond from evaporation loss. Water waste is another largely unnecessary thing.
My small way is composting. We run our chicken coop like a composter (they are so much better at turning and aerating than humans are), and use all of that compost in our garden. We use all of the leaves that fall on our property as "browns" in the coop. We also have 2 household composters for anything the chickens can't have. I've heard that backyard chickens will never be cost effective in eggs, but in poop they can pay you back in 3 years 🙂
Thank you for such a thoughtful post. I too subscribe to Hungry Harvest and love it (and am trying to get my little girls to eat more and different types of vegetables) . I also try to do my small part by recycling everything that I can (so glad that our county has single stream recycling so that I just put everything into one bin and don't have to sort it out).
I guess one of the things we do is consistently recycle. Even my 4 yr old knows the difference between the trash and recycle bins and often asks which one to use.
As a gardener, I'm always thinking about the earth and my soil, and the life it supports. Here's something everyone can do for the earth that is very easy: make peace with your weeds. Most of them are important food for pollinators and provide habitat for other small creatures. Do you really hate dandelions that much? Why not let them be? Plus you can eat lots of weeds (dandelions included) and when you want the space for something cultivated, you can just clear a small spot cutting weeds off at soil line and leave their bulk as a mulch. I could go on about the benefits of weeds, but basically the worst thing people do to their soil is use herbicides unnecessarily.
I heard once you can kill weeds with boiling water & it WORKS. I boil my kettle sometimes & use it to 'water' the weeds that come up through our pebble ground under the clothesline; works a treat. the weeds cook & wilt & die, no pesticides.
We’ve been trying to cut back on using paper goods in our home. I love the rainwater barrels above, maybe I’ll have to get that set up too!
In the Portland, Oregon area, we don't have Hungry Harvest, but we get Imperfect Produce delivery, which is similar!
That's what I was going to say - many places on the West Coast are in the Imperfect Produce delivery area.
I'm waiting for hungry harvest or something similar to get to St. Louis! Today I'm freezing bananas for smoothies (my husband has one every morning) and composting the peels.
My "small way" to help the environment is to cook almost everything from scratch, therefore avoiding the packaging of remade items, as well as avoiding the unhealthy additions that are a necessity in processed foods. I try very hard to use up completely the food I make, before I make more, and if something does go to waste, I have a compost pile that we use in our garden! 🙂
Hope I win--I would LOVE to try Hungry Harvest!!!!
Repurpose everything possible, recycle, buy used when I can.
Our way is not eating fast food at all, not drinking canned or bottled beverages, and minimizing packaged convenience foods. So we minimize paper/metal waste to start with.
That sounds pretty pompous so I will also add we have a lot of prime boxes laying around the house right now - need to take them to recycling drop off 🙂
Since hungry harvest is concentrated on the east coast, I thought I'd add another similar service. In Chicago and the Bay area there is Imperfectproduce.com
Yes! I was going to say thanks Hungry Harvest for all you do! For those of us on the west coast, try Imperfect Produce. (I'm in LA and they go all the way up to Seattle) I love knowing that I'm getting most of my produce from supply that would just be thrown away.
I signed up for the Healthy Harvest wait list. I had noticed before that they are operating heavily on the east coast but we need them in the Midwest as well, as noted by the reader above from St. Louis. I am doing some of the things that many other readers noted - trying to buy just enough fresh produce that my family can use to avoid waste, making a point to use leftovers (have a dedicated shelf in the fridge) and regularly checking produce drawers, and I am a recycling zealot. I routinely pull items out of our household trash (added by other family members) and redirect them to recycling. Once a year, I take aluminum cans to recycle at our recycling center. I am hoping that some of my efforts have rubbed off on my daughter. She attends the School of Environmental Studies high school and they have a large celebration every Earth Day with speakers, hiking and many special events.
I, too am not that into composting - but do it anyway. And, we eat LOTS of leftovers as I still seem to cook for a family, though it's down to my husband and myself! I'd love to win the deliveries - but, alas no delivery here.
I work really hard to separate our family’s garbage into compost, recycling, and landfill.
I also set aside old clothes and fabric that are too damaged for Goodwill and take them to the fabric recycling event our community has twice a year.
I save $200.00 per month on my grocery bill by eliminating food waste.
Choosing reusables! I cloth diaper and use cloth napkins, among other things. I’m signed up for the Hungry Harvest wait list here in Atlanta, and it’s coming later this year! I actually was on a market research call with them a month or two ago, which was really cool!
I didn't know they were coming to Atlanta. Very exciting.
I did that call too. I can't wait for them to come to Atlanta.
Thanks for the reminder, Kristen! I had no idea today was Earth Day.
We try to not waste food and conserve as much energy as we can, but it's mainly for our wallets rather than the environment. The environmental added bonus sounds good though. I guess frugality and environmental friendliness go hand in hand.
One way I help the planet is by cloth diapering my babies. Not only does it save a ton of money, but it also saves SO many diapers from sitting in landfills.
We get a MightyFix delivery each month to cut down on our usage of disposable waste.
We compost, I don't love it either, and I am not sure I'm doing it correctly, but it does keep a lot of waste out of the regular trash. So far the best composter is the guinea pig who eats all the fruit/vegetable scraps.
We do the usual type of saving on food waste such as saving veggie scraps for homemade stock and leftover fruit for smoothies. I grow a garden in the summer and for some reason when it’s food I’ve grown myself vs. store bought food, I’m even more careful about it not going to waste.
I'd love to win a few free months! And they deliver to my area, yeah! I have a compost bin, too, but it sits empty over the winter. Not sure how to turn a huge frozen block of vegetable matter. But ready to start up again. I do what other commenters said: I, too, will take recycles left by guest/family members out of my trash can in the house to put in the recycle bin. I'm amazed by how fast that fills my can in the house. Most weeks, I only have one bag of trash to take to the curb, and sometimes don't need to put out the recycle bin that week. I wish our recycling would take the fabric/clothing so we don't have to make a dump run. I'm in the process of saving it up so hubby can drop it there on his way to work. If there's a line, he won't be happy.
I have been trying to convince our family to use fewer paper products. It can be hard to convince everyone that it's really OK to get fabric napkins dirty! And I've been keeping a stack of fabric (old T-shirts etc.) available for cleaning or to wipe up spills instead of paper towels. Even if it's mostly just me using them, that adds up!
I've spent over 30 years working for the Indiana Department of Environmental Management as an environmental manager, helping companies clean up hazardous waste sites and petroleum spills. I gave Earth Day presentations, too, and demonstrations at the State Fair. Environmental cleanup has been my job for over half my life!
PS - If I got the free weeks, I'd give them to my daughter. Hungry Harvest isn't in my area, but IS in hers!
I volunteer at a food pantry where we pick up and then distribute grocery store discards to families who need food assistance. Groceries dump stuff that is a few days away from expiration, less than perfect produce, and items that are simply not selling well. Rather than go to the dumpsters, we have a daily route of pick ups and the stores are always ready for us so everything is already taken out of inventory, counted, packed into boxes or bags, and they even help us to load in our vans. Folks that receive assistance such as food stamps can then stretch their budgets to cover a nicer variety and often meat, fish, dairy, and cheese that they cannot justify in their weekly budget.
I drive an all electric car, recycle nearly everything, try very hard not to waste food, only buy organic or all natural food and body care and keep a nontoxic house and yard.
We recycle, compost and have solar panels 🙂
Winning a Hungry Harvest box would be totally awesome! (and I just found out they DO deliver to our area!!)
Thanks for sharing and the giveaway!
(everyone in our family is keeping fingers crossed)
Shopping at our local farmer's market ... it cuts out the middle man (frugal) and all the transportation associated with it, and also supports our regional small businesses. A win-win. And healthy at that!
Unfortunately I don't have any new ideas beyond the classic trifecta of reduce, reuse, recycle. What a great giveaway- and they deliver to my area!
I refuse to buy paper, plastic or Styrofoam plates, bowls or cups. I bought a huge set of 1980s style dishes at my church yard sale for $35. This has enabled me to cut out throwaway china completely. I am currently working on accumulating cloth napkins and making rags from hopelessly worn out old clothes. Hoping to leave less of a footprint for this good Earth.
I've signed up for the waitlist, as unfortunately they're not in Boston yet. Nor are any similar programs as far as I can tell, sadly.
None in my area yet either. I love this idea so maybe in the near future.
We literally halved our grocery budget just by focusing on food waste. I'm ashamed how much we were wasting, but glad we finally got ourselves straightened out. Food waste is HUGE. My husband worked at Panera when we were in college, and every night they had a large amount of leftover food they would donate to local charities, plus he and his coworkers would bring home some things, and yet still they were throwing stuff away. Multiply that times every restaurant in America. Wow.
Healthy Harvest is unfortunately not offered in my area, but local grocery chains have started to catch on to this phenomenon. One of our local chains, Hy-vee, has a "misfits" program that is similar, and I would bet other places also offer similar programs. Just need to investigate your area.
We are really good recyclers but it has been bothering me of late how much stuff we are recycling. I have really tried to crack down on my food waste this year & mostly winning but now I think I need to focus some energy on developing strategies to reduce plastic waste & recyclables. I just recently bought a number of hankies to reduce tissue use, & I take my lunch to work in all kinds of reusable containers in a large lunchbox - it started with me feeling bad about the 208 single serve yogurt containers I was throwing out each year; so now I'm down to 50 or so larger tubs. I hope to move to making my own yoghurt soon & then there'll be none. All good we do makes a difference but I agree that the consistent small positive changes also make a big impact.
We buy only enough produce that we will eat. We recycle. Hope you choose me. My daughter receives Hungry Harvest weekly they could use a month of boxes free. Thanks for the chance.
This year I've been taking little steps to avoid packaging, where possible. Things like bringing my jar to the store to fill up with honey and skipping the little produce bags to bag my fruits and veggies. They are small things but small steps, right?
Oh I think that's huge, I avoid those bags too unless I'm buying loose salad leaves so each shop thats hundreds of little plastic bags not ending up in the giant ocean whirlpool of plastic; well done.
woops that should say each year 🙂
I am in the midst of doing a major pantry/freezer/fridge clean-out to use up all the food I have before I buy any more. Would love to try Hungry Harvest!!!!
We use cloth napkins instead of paper for every meal and have for almost 5 years. It's not that hard to wash them and there is something really soothing about folding them. I've also started using receiving blankets that I had cut up for rags as handkerchiefs. We ran out of tissues and instead of buying more, I just reached into my rag bin and grabbed one of those.
Lots of great reminders of environmental mindfulness! Like others, we do many basic things (veggie garden, recycle, re-use, menu-plan to reduce food waste, buy second hand, donate to thrift stores, bundle errands,
etc), but I'm sure we could do even more. I'll check back tonight to read the comment section for more suggestions! 🙂
Our county offers a free recycling program that they pick up every other week. It makes it easy to recycle. And I have a compost pile in the backyard for food scrapes.
I would enjoy getting to try Hungry Harvest.
I'd love the Hungry Harvest month. I've been interested in trying it but because I'm a bit burnt out on cooking, uncertain that I'd use everything. A month seems like a good period in which to try it out.
I do a number of small things to conserve either products or money:
- Compost. No longer an active composter or gardener, I still compost my kitchen scraps.
- Not justcloth shopping bags: I reuse the produce bags as well.
- Reuse take-out containers. I keep a bag of the ones I like best in my car, to grab on my way into the restaurant. Not perfect at this but baby steps.
- Hand-wash large dirty dishes, rather than using inordinate amounts of space in the dishwasher.
- Lazy lawn. No chemicals, no fertilizers. When I'm so motivated, I spread the aforementioned compost on the lawn. Or hire someone to do it for me - I don't like lawn care and I do like helping someone earn a living.
One of my blogging friends, Hannah at Eat, Drink & Save Money, just launched a compost pick up service in the Naples area with her husband (www.naplescompost.com)! I love the idea, and I think it's great! We also compost...or take our scraps out to the farm for my dad's pigs.
I use reusable bags for shopping, and have reduced our food waste--thanks to better meal planning. AND I've always wanted to try Hungry Harvest. Hope I win. 🙂
Food waste is a big no no in our house. I do everything I can to reduce it. I freeze, dehydrate and can. Then the dog gets it. After that it goes into the compost bin. My garden loves it and I get beautiful veggies from it. I would love to win the box. I always go to the marked down produce rack. I accepted 150 free donuts last week that were headed to the garbage. I took them to work, gave some to friends and neighbors. Happy to report they all got eaten and only 1 by me! The full story is here: https://mcoia.blogspot.com/2018/04/what-do-you-do-when-you-are-offered-150.html
I used cloth diapers for both of my sons. It was not easy- but it was better for our family, better for our planet, and it saved tons of money!
This is probably the easiest means of helping the environment, but I like to us re-usable bags while shopping.
I try to avoid throwing things in the trash if at all possible. This includes donating, finding other homes, using the item in a different way, freecycling and recycling! I also try my best to reduce food waste and be frugal with electricity usage.
We already try to limit food waste by using up leftovers and being mindful of how to maximize our groceries, but would love to try Hungry Harvest to minimize food waste on the other end of the production cycle.
We also avoid extra packaging and use reusable packages when we can, try to buy used clothes and furniture, and use up what we have before buying new things.
Hi, I've been wanting to sign up for Hungry Harvest, just haven't yet. Winning this would be a great way to try it out.
Thanks,
Coleen
HH is not offered in my area.
If everyone had to recycle it would make a huge difference. I hope for my kids generation that it becomes mandatory. I wish you would bring back Food Waste Friday -I know it was voted out but maybe once every other month. It sure made a huge difference in what I waste. People host parties where I work and I am amazed at the amount of food that goes right to the dumpster.
I recycle, have had a compost him for almost 30 years and have had a rain barrel for 5. My new thing is my Little Free Library that my husband built me for my birthday out of all reused materials. Now I'm recycling books in my neighborhood!
Bin not him! Stupid phone!
I can't imagine throwing away 40%!! That just seems so insane. I was brought up to only cook what you can eat and if there's leftovers you eat them before anything else the next day. We may throw out 10% (or less) and it's almost always because something went bad like produce before we could eat it all, but I try to feed my bearded dragon any produce that is going bad. He loves it so we don't even throw much of that away. I just don't understand people being so wasteful? It really doesn't make sense to me. I guess not everyone is raised the same. Thanks for the post.
I agree! I have seen discussion of that 40% as including how much doesn't make it from farmer to consumer, and includes restaurant and store discards. But the point is, don't waste!
I hadn't heard of a city-wide fabric recycling event before. I am pretty sure that the charitable resale store near us loads up unusable fabrics they receive as donations and sends them for recycling.
A new movement that hasn't been mentioned yet in this thread is "Don't Use Plastic Straws". When I was very small, paper straws were available and perhaps still are.
It's not always practical to compost yourself, but some cities require their waste management companies to compost. If your city does not, it's important to ask for it, or event to get politically active when your city's waste management contracts come up for renewal. Our waste management picks up three different containers each week--compost and yard clippings, recyclables, and trash. We have a very tiny trash receptacle, most of our stuff goes out in recycling or compost. We try to store things in reusable glass jars and containers rather than disposable plastic and cook from ingredients rather than buying packaged foods.
I buy secondhand and packaging free
This is making me re-examine my habits, because I’m not sure I’m very good about helping the planet, beyond recycling consistently. I do take credit for training my husband to recycle too, since he came from a family that never did so. I’ve also consistently tried to support local produce by subscribing to a CSA, though I moved this year, so it could be the perfect time to switch to Hungry Harvest.
We are Hungry Harvest customers (thanks to you Kristen!). We grilled the peppers that came with this week’s box.
As for food waste...I have never understood the idea of refusing to eat leftovers. I eat leftovers for lunch most days. Either what we ate for dinner the night before or sometimes even leftovers from breakfast (it happens, if someone happens to get ambitious). Sure, it saves money but it also saves TIME! Making a new meal or picking up take out or even placing an order and listening for the delivery guy takes so much more space than just heating last night’s leftovers up in the microwave.
Working from home is a great environmental move. Also saves tons of time!
I love this post!! I try so hard to avoid disposable food storage- I. E. Zip locks, paper towels, etc. would love to win!
Our family refuses plastic bags and brings our own and try to reduce food waste.
Has anyone mentioned curbing meat consumption? Nearly 20% of human-produced green house gas emissions are caused by livestock production. If everyone in the US gave up beef (not even chicken, pork, fish), we would reduce our national greenhouse gas emissions by 50-75%. Our family is vegetarian, and I know that's not an option for all, but even just a few more meatless meals would make an impact.
I just really want to win the Hungry Harvest boxes! LOL! But we also do many things at home such as use cloth napkins, cut back on paper products, try for zero food waste, use reusable containers for lunches, leftovers, etc. and recycle everything we possibly can. It's amazing that my recycle trash is SO much more than my regular trash each week.
I bring my lunch to work nearly every day with reusable containers (mostly Pyrex!) which reduces food waste, trash, etc!
I bring my own shopping bags with me to avoid using the plastic ones the store provides.
We try to re-purpose everything to keep it out of the landfill. My kids are approaching tweens and we still have baby wipes boxes from when they were infants in our craft shelf - they are great for for corralling art supplies! Would love to win the Hungry Harvest giveaway!
I try not to waste water or electricity. I would love to win the Hungry Harvest giveaway.
i hit up our local Harris Teeter reduced produce area at least 3 times a week. huge bags of kale, apples, and bananas can be had for just 50 cents or $1. Also salad kits and veggie trays after sporting events or holidays make my day & my family may be tired of me showing off my deals. sometimes things like mushrooms or avocados need to be used that day but thats how i figure out whats for dinner and what to freeze. i walk there 1 mile round trip & always bring my reusable bags which fold so small in my purse. the produce staff know me _shout out to Sabrina_and they donate unsellable things to local farms.
so let me try Hungry Harvest!!
britern3
Not food waste, but...
We recently recycled a bag of clothes that had rips, tears and stains to H&M. The store has a donation bin by the cashier that accepts worn out textiles that are in too poor condition to be donated. The clothes do not need to be purchased from H&M. We had pounds of clothes that would have gone in the trash as we have plenty of rags and no other textile recycling nearby.
That's awesome! I had no idea they do that.
Shop all things used and thrifted. Always reusable bags, compost, among other things.
HH is coming to Atlanta! Yeah.
To be honest we never recycled at our old place- it was an apartment complex and the bins were ALWAYS full. It should have been easy since there were separate spots for glass, plastic, and paper, but they were constantly overflowing, so everything went straight into the regular trash. We have a house now, and the town automatically gives you one regular trash can, and one for recyclables- everything can get mixed in there together! We have tons of reusable bags, so I've designated 2 to go right next to our kitchen garbage and recyclables go in there, and we empty those into our recycling can whenever they get full. We've recycled more in the past month we've lived here than we did in 2 years in our old place!
I save ends and trimmings of food--veggies and chicken carcasses for soup, bread heels and odd rolls for bread pudding and french toast.
I bring my lunch to work every day, pack in Pyrex and use our regular silverware.
We pack everything in pyrex, get local beer in our growlers, and travel with silverware. Thanks for this amazing giveaway!
Such a great giveaway! I'd love to win.
I eat mostly vegetarian, and once we moved into our new house, we started composting. I'm amazed at how much less trash we generate (and we don't take it out as often, because it doesn't smell like rotting vegetable trimmings!). Composting has also been great for our gardening efforts.