By Tiffany Beyer
Of all the food produced in North America, 40 percent of it ends up in the trash.
That startling statistic is the foundation for the Canadian documentary “Just Eat It: a Food Waste Story.”
Screened in Lynn Pippenger Hall Tuesday, the viewing was part of the sustainability connection film series organized by the University of Florida and the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, an organization which provides research-based knowledge and educational programs.
After the film, a panel of three took questions and comments from the audience.
The panel was composed by Stephanie Watson, the program supervisor at the Pinellas County Department of Solid Waste; Janet Keeler, a journalism instructor at USF St. Petersburg and former food and travel editor at the Tampa Bay Times; and Brandon McFadden, an instructor and consumer behavior researcher at UF.
Watson spoke about successful Pinellas County programs and initiatives. For example, a 90-day pilot program is in the works to see if Pinellas County can logistically and operationally turn solid waste into something beneficial like compost.
“Right now, we’re looking at our 20-year horizon of waste management and a long-term plan,” Watson said. “We’re looking to see if food composting may be a component of that.”
Watson also said the county’s solid waste facility took in 1.2 million tons of waste in 2016. About 16 percent of that was food waste, according to a waste composition study conducted in 2014.
Of that 16 percent, over 50 percent of the food waste was from commercial entities such as restaurants.
Food culture in the U.S. was a prevalent topic during the discussion.
“We’ve tried so hard how to figure out how to get dinner on the table without cooking it,” Keeler said. “We’ve given a lot of the responsibility of feeding our families and feeding ourselves to other people whose main goal is to make money.”
McFadden agreed, saying that the cost of meals can influence how people view and value food.
McFadden also spoke about food labeling, specifically the dates on food packaging, which have no federal regulation.
There are solutions being proposed to help ease the confusion of food labeling and dates, according to McFadden. He said that there’s been a push to use QR codes, which are printed on packaging and can be scanned with a smartphone to provide a whole list of detailed information about the product.
“There is an industry effort right now to try to coordinate with manufacturers to make these dates make more sense to consumers,” McFadden said.
Legislation was continually brought up as an answer to the food waste, but it can be tricky to navigate the solution, McFadden said.
McFadden said it can be dangerous for people from a higher social class to advocate for certain legislation, because it could potentially outcast lower-income people.
“We can’t legislate our preferences on people who can’t afford it,” he said.
“I think consumers have a lot of power, more power than they realize they have,” McFadden said. “But I think consumer education is better than, or more important than consumer advocating.”
All the panelists agreed consumer education is not being discussed as much as it should.
“Food never gets into the national dialogue when there’s an election, ever, and that’s a crime” Keeler said.
