Fruity answer to food waste

Sunday Times: "JENNY DAWSON was disgusted as she looked down at the heap of wasted food at New Covent Garden Market in west London. The mangetout that had come from Kenya was still in its packaging and had been discarded as rubbish when wholesale trading closed at 7am. Tomatoes, courgettes, apples and onions lay abandoned in a pile, waiting to be binned.

Dawson had a brainwave — she would use the abandoned stock to start a business. Now, two years later, she sells chutneys made from leftover fruit and vegetables at Borough Market in south London. Her business, Rubies in the Rubble, gives the produce a second chance, preserving it in jars with a shelf life of up to two years.

“There’s nothing wrong with the food, it just hasn’t been bought by anyone. Nobody is at fault, but it is such a waste to throw it all away,” said Dawson.

“When you see the waste with your own eyes, it touches a nerve.”

Food waste is typically disposed of in landfill sites. As it decomposes, it produces methane and carbon dioxide, which are released into the atmosphere, where they act as greenhouse gases.

According to the latest report by Wrap, the environmental body, of the 7.2m tonnes of food thrown away in Britain each year, more than half is good enough to be eaten.

Dawson, 26, spent two years working for the hedge fund Odey Asset Management before making her career change."


http://www.facebook.com/rubiesintherubble

Feeding 5000 with 'waste' food

The Guardian: " ... The Feeding the 5000 team – a coalition of Fareshare, FoodCycle, Love Food Hate Waste and Friends of the Earth, led by food waste expert Tristram Stuart– treated Grondona and 4,999 others to a free meal using food that would otherwise have been wasted, such as cosmetically imperfect fresh fruit 
and vegetables – in short, wonky carrots.

The misshapen ingredients were not salvaged from nearby skips but supplied directly by farmers who sell their goods to supermarkets. "The supermarkets have strict cosmetic standards, so if a carrot is too long or slightly bent, it either goes in the bin or is left out in the field and simply ploughed back into the ground," Stuart says. "Today, that's not happened and all that food is here to be eaten."

While UK consumers cannot access farmers' surplus produce, Stuart hopes the event will inspire people to stop wasting food and to demand businesses end the practice of dismissing unsightly goods. Some supermarkets tried selling ugly vegetables in 2008 after an EU ruling meant odd-shaped and oversized produce could be sold in the UK.

As well as the 5,000 portions of curry on offer, a live cooking tent was showing the public how to cook and eat discarded bits of animals such as hearts, lungs and offal (offal consumption has apparently halved in the UK during the past 30 years). There were also 1,600 pints of apple juice ready to be drunk and celebrity chefs turning waste into well-seasoned goodies."


http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/nov/18/waste-food-feeds-5000-trafalgar

Africa enjoys light bulb moment

London Sunday Times: "In Kenya, where the average income is $2 to $3 a day, the $50 (£30) cost of a modest solar lighting kit is the equivalent of buying a second-hand car in Britain. That cost is the main barrier to the take-up of solar power in countries such as Kenya where many homes are miles from the electricity grid but there is plenty of sunshine.

“The problem with renewables is that you are asking somebody to build their own power plant. They have to pay for the power infrastructure,” said Bransfield-Garth.

It takes eight minutes and 19 seconds for the sun’s rays to travel to Earth, which is where the company’s name comes from. Through its scheme, users pay a small upfront fee of $10 to install a solar panel and can then add credit when they need it by buying a scratch card that gives access to a code sent to their mobile phone by text. Typing the code into the Indigo keypad provides solar power for a set period, typically a week.

People in rural Africa may be leading quite traditional lives, but mobile phones are ubiquitous. Bransfield-Garth, 52, said that after a decade of working in the mobile phone industry, he recognised that they provide a good way for customers to make payments and pass on information.

The initial cost of the solar panel is absorbed by Eight19, which gets its money back over time. After the user has handed over about $100 through the scratchcard payments, the cost is settled in full. From that point on, all the electricity generated is free.

Both Eight19 and Solar Aid, a charity dedicated to solar panels, put $100,000 into a kickstart fund that is helping to support the first 4,000 installations in Kenya and South Sudan.

By the end of this year, Eight19 expects to have 20,000 units installed in several countries including Zambia, Malawi and potentially India. Bransfield-Garth said the company has had inquiries from 51 countries."

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/business/energy_and_environment/article1026836.ece

Wen paints Europe green

Maybe if world leaders all start to think as Mr Wen, China's Premier, things may start to improve - http://chindia-alert.org/2012/04/27/wen-paints-europe-green-in-4-nation-trip/

One of the first things wrong with the world economy ...

... is the unquestioned and universally accepted objective of all nations and businesses to 'grow'.


If a country or a significant company posts zero growth, expressions of major concern immediately surface and all sorts of 'gurus' add their hand-wringing words, full of gloom and doom.


Can this be right?


Given that there are finite resources on planet earth and that there is already 7 billions inhabitants, how can all nations and all businesses continue to strive for growth?  That is surely unsustainable. Some scientists have carried out serious studies into what they call "Limits to Growth" - http://limits-to-growth.org/ Although their initial publication in 1972 was too pessimistic, nevertheless their central notion that there are finite limits to earth's resources, esp in the light of growing human population is true.

A very worrying report is New Scientist's, 26 May, 2007 "Earth Audit" - http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19426051.200-earths-natural-wealth-an-audit.html This report predicts dire shortages within a 100 years for all kinds of mineral, including uranium and, of course, petroleum. But also other rare minerals that modern high-tech depends on, including iPad, iPod, iPhone, PCs, TVs, car's catalytic converters, batteries needed by new electric cars. In other words, if we don't find alternatives in 100 years, modern society will revert to the stone age!


Also see New Scientist's "How the economy is killing earth" - http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20026786.000-special-report-how-our-economy-is-killing-the-earth.html

What's wrong with the world economy

This blog is a layman's view of what's wrong with the world economy and, perhaps, how to correct them. Included in this blog will be renewables, green, sustainability and other such topics. I hope some of these will be "good news".

I hope my readers will also share their views of both the problems and their solutions, and offer their examples of sustainability and 'good news'..